By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Furious Abaco residents yesterday slammed the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s move to launch mass pre-Christmas disconnections over bills dating back four years to Hurricane Dorian as “very inhumane”.

Lydia Higgs, an Abaco realtor and property manager, told Tribune Business that many locals, second home owners and vacation renters had received an unpleasant “Christmas surprise” after finding that the state-owned utility had “locked” their meters and cut-off supply over sums allegedly outstanding from September 2019 to present.

Revealing that it took five hours on Friday, queuing at both the bank and Corporation’s Marsh Harbour office to pay bills reaching four-figure sums behalf of seven clients, she said the billings had failed to take into account the discrepancies, inconsistencies and nuances stemming from the disaster inflicted by the Category Five storm as well as the loss/interruption of service.

Ms Higgs told this newspaper that, in Dorian’s immediate aftermath, there was a free-for-all as survivors accessed scarce water supplies from wherever they could find them - including properties that still had working meters or outside showers.

This, she added, was exacerbated by the then-Minnis administration’s announcement that water was ‘free’ in the Dorian-ravaged areas. However, the Water & Sewerage Corporation has never seemingly made any adjustments, or given any credits, to customers for this, and is now expecting them to pay the full four-year amount - either in one go, or via a substantial upfront sum accompanied by a payment plan.

Ms Higgs, who said many customers had been given just two weeks to pay before disconnections started, with bills issued towards the end of November, cited her duplex as an example. While one unit had received a $900 bill from the Water & Sewerage Corporation, a charge she expected, the other had been hit for $7,000-plus.

This, the realtor explained, likely stemmed from persons using that unit’s water supply in Dorian’s immediate aftermath. Ms Higgs said she caught countless persons exiting the unit having just taken a shower or with trucks carrying jugs filled up with water using its supply.

She also revealed that new home owners, who purchased their property post-Dorian, have also been hit with disconnections. When Bahamas-based property is purchased, all utility bills - including water - are supposed to be settled in full, usually by the vendor or seller, so that the accounts can be switched into the new owner’s name.

However, Ms Higgs said the Water & Sewerage Corporation had held off on switching Abaco accounts into new owners’ names, despite the latter supplying proof of sale and title, as it sought to reconcile customer accounts and billings post-Dorian.

Now, however, Ms Higgs said the same new owners are finding themselves locked out of their meters and water supply with bills likely still being sent to the seller. She, added, though, that the Corporation is now seeking payment from the present owners who will have to seek reimbursement from their predecessors.

“They decided from Dorian until the present they should just start charging everybody two weeks ago and then locking everybody, expecting people to come up with the majority of funds or a significant payment and make a payment plan, or you would get locked out,” Ms Higgs told Tribune Business. “They’re doing that in central Abaco and will move on to other areas. This has been ongoing for several weeks.

“We waited four years on you, and all of a sudden you want us to pay these service fees? It doesn’t make sense, and is very inhumane because water is a basic necessity. The impact to me is even greater than on us locals. They could have done a lot better job.

“We have tourists - tourism has just returned to the island - who are affected, and brand new second home owners are affected. Is that how we welcome people to our island? This is not the correct way to do it in the midst of the holiday season, start of school exams and the start of tourism season.”

Robert Deal, the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s general manager, responding to this newspaper’s inquiries pledged that the state-owned utility is working with Abaco residents on “a case by case basis” to address the issues created by Hurricane Dorian, subsequent service interruption and the lack of account billings for four years.

Promising that disconnections are “an absolute last resort”, he urged the Corporation’s customers to contact its Marsh Harbour customer service team if they encountered difficulties while asserting that rebates will be provided for leaks.

“The challenge is that due to the absolute devastation in central Abaco following Hurricane Dorian, particularly in the greater Marsh Harbour area and the Treasure Cay area where we have over 5,000 customers in total, the issuance of bills was put on hold for a period but we resumed the issuance of bills for these customers earlier this year and we are actively working to regularise these accounts post-Dorian,” Mr Deal said.

“New property owners are urged to contact our team to arrange transfer of ownership documentation updating in our system. The Water & Sewerage Corporation remains committed to working with each and everyone of our valued customers in the Abacos, particularly in Central Abaco, where the regularising of accounts is ongoing.

“The Water & Sewerage Corporation will be flexible with our customers noting the circumstances of, and following, Hurricane Dorian, but we do want them to contact us so that we can work with them to regularise their accounts. Adjustments will be granted based on the individual circumstances and the information/documentation presented.”

Mr Deal did not provide a figure for how many accounts have been disconnected in this latest exercise, although some sources suggested it could be as high as 500. Ms Higgs said the Water & Sewerage Corporation started asking persons with working meters to contact it last February so these could be read, although it was not until April 2023 that bills started to emerge.

These were issued in “bits and pieces”, with quarterly bills being received for periods such as the 2019 fourth quarter or 2020 fourth quarter, but she added that customers were told “to wait” to pay because some “last minute adjustments” were being made.

“They just sent the final bills to everyone in the last week of November, and the first week in December they started cutting everybody off in central Abaco,” Ms Higgs said. Pointing to the bills issued for her two duplex apartments, she argued that the Corporation needed to investigate the massive discrepancy between the two bills - $900 and $7,000 - before she should pay the latter.

However, for the $7,000 bill, she added it is demanding $1,900 upfront and that the balance be paid off via $500 monthly installments over the next year. “It took four years to get you the bill, and they want you to pay it off in a year,” Ms Higgs said. “I’ve literally been in every quarter from when their office re-opened asking when the bills are coming out.

“They said it was not in their hands; Nassau was the one in charge of it. They even turned off somebody who was fully paid up to date. They were in town for Thanksgiving, printed out the bill for them. They were paid up to-date and still turned it off.”

Calling on Water & Sewerage to use customers’ pre-Dorian bills as a guide, Ms Higgs said persons were queuing outside its Marsh Harbour office on Friday to pay their bills. She added that it took her five hours, from 10.30am to 3.30pm, to settle the accounts of seven clients, which also required her to visit the bank and withdraw “massive amounts of cash” as cards reached their payment limits.

Roscoe Thompson, chairman of the Marsh Harbour/Spring City Township, told Tribune Business he was aware of residents being cut-off for alleged non-payment by the Water & Sewerage Corporation. “They have been cutting people off, but they never came up with the amount after Dorian that people owed and who lost their meter,” he said.

“There are people being turned off for water bills from Dorian. I honestly thought we were going to go in, set up a plan, figure out Dorian was this, give some leeway. I was hearing people have over $2,000 water bills. How are they going to pay those? Then we cut them off? Have we given them any notice? What are we doing to avoid people, whose meters are broken, still being charged for it?

“I thought they would make an adjustment to help. That’s the thing I don’t understand. We’ve been hearing from a lot of people around here that their water’s been turned off. At least do it in the New Year, not before Christmas. They should at least have waited. January is only another month. They’ve waited this long already (four years). They should have a game plan in place.”