By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Water & Sewerage Corporation generates just 50 percent of the revenue needed to cover its bills, a top manager admitted yesterday, as Andros residents warned of a Crab Fest “nightmare overload”.

Montgomery Miller, senior manager in the Corporation’s strategic co-ordination office, told the Andros Business Outlook conference that the state-owned utility remains heavily reliant on taxpayer-backed guarantees or subsidies to underwrite its ongoing $350m nationwide capital works expansion - the biggest infrastructure project in its history.

“One of the biggest issues the Water & Sewerage Corporation has, which we don’t tend to publicise, is the fact we generate about 50 percent of the revenue that we need to operate the utility,” he conceded.

“As a result, we are basically dependent on government subsidies, so when we have these major infrastructure developments such as Mangrove Cay, we are relying on the central government to support us making these investments either by guarantee or direct investment so we can fix these issues.”

Leon Lundy, minister of state with responsibility for the Water & Sewerage Corporation, told the House of Assembly during the 2025-2026 Budget debate that the water provider suffered a $50.1m net operating loss during its most recent financial year with a 7.4 percent revenue increase to $60.9m unable to offset $113m in operating expenses.

Much of the Corporation’s financial shortcomings have been blamed on the fact that there has been no consumer tariff or rate increase since 1999, despite a significant increase in inflation and costs over the past quarter-century, with the end result being that it has been selling water to Bahamians below the cost of production for many years.

Mr Lundy, while challenged on this issue by the Opposition, ruled out any fee or rate increases during his Budget debate. He added that the Water & Sewerage Corporation was continuing to enjoy success with its non-revenue water initiative, which is designed to cut the loss of water from its distribution - through theft and leaky pipes/mains - before it gets to the end-consumer and can be paid for.

“When we took office, New Providence was distributing 11.9m imperial gallons per day but selling only 5.02m,” Mr Lundy said. “Today, despite distributing slightly less - 11.66m gallons per day - we are selling 8.34m gallons, a 3.32m gallon increase. This increase demonstrates our improved efficiency and our commitment to getting value from every gallon produced.”

Mr Miller told yesterday’s Andros Business Outlook that cutting water losses, or non-revenue water, is vital to the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s financial well-being given its ever-increasing reliance on reverse osmosis-produced water as fresh groundwater resources shrink. He described non-revenue water as the equivalent of “wasting money in the ground”.

“We are very challenged because the majority of the water Water & Sewerage Corporation produces, and I imagine this happens at AUTEC as well, we are producing the water by reverse osmosis. Exactly,” Mr Miller said.

“Reverse osmosis water is reliable, but is heavily energy dependent. It’s expensive to produce so we don’t want to be putting reverse osmosis water in leaky pipes because we are paying for basically water that is wasting away. Basically, we are wasting money in the ground.”

Mr Miller said the $100m Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan, which the Government signed with the multilateral lender in February this year, will devote a portion of the first $50m tranche released to further slashing non-revenue water losses on all islands and not just New Providence.

After confirming that all of the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s production facilities are equipped with back-up power facilities, Mr Miller was confronted by a Love Hill/Andros Town Airbnb owner who voiced concern that “when the power goes out we have no water source at all”.

Voicing concern that further supply disruption will result during this weekend’s Crab Fest, which will likely attract hundreds of visitors to the island, she said: “When we have a full house, like Crab Fest is coming now, and the power goes out, that’s like nightmare overload.

“With the clients coming out, paying good money to stay, but they have no water to bathe, flush the toilets. What is being done as far as back-up power when the power goes off?” Mr Miller conceded that this was “the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve”, while Water & Sewerage Corporation’s island manager said a portable back-up unit would be in position to address the Airbnb owner’s fears.

“I can assure you that the intent is to complete the upgrades so we have all that power in place,” Mr Miller added. “A team from New Providence came in specifically to make sure power is ready and available for Crab Fest. We understand the importance of the event on the island, so there’s a team on the ground right now to make sure there’s no interruption as a result of power for this event.”

Anthony Christie, Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) chief operating officer, added that BPL has taken similar precautionary measures “to make sure as many generators are available to meet the demand” generated by Crab Fest.

As for the Water & Sewerage Corporation, Mr Miller said it is focused on its smart meter roll-out as a way to rapidly alert both itself and its customers to unusual “spikes” in the latter’s consumption that may be caused by pipe leaks. Undetected leaks typically result in higher customer bills, he added, which in turn discourage them from using the Corporation’s services and drive them to private well usage.

Adding that Andros’ smart meter conversion rate, at 10 percent, is already better than New Providence’s, Mr Miller said: “We’re doing something to protect consumers so that there’s not wastage of their precious resources, money and water. That’s something we’re looking forward to installing in the coming months and years.”

He also praised the completion of underground water works before roads are paved as “another good step we’ve seen in recent years”. Mr Miller said: “With the Government we see a much more structured approach with respect to planning; paving coming after ground infrastructure being done.

“We see that being more structured here, in Abaco, Eleuthera and throughout this archipelago. This is a model we want to see; deal with the ground infrastructure first then cover up afterwards.”