Metro Pacific and DMCI-led Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (Maynilad) will be spending more than P170 million this year for its meter replacement program, which will involve the upgrade of some 150,000 water meters of residential accounts across the West Zone.
The meter replacement program is intended to improve billing accuracy and reduce meter malfunctions which contribute to Maynilad’s commercial losses. Since January of this year, the company has started replacing small meters manufactured from year 2005 and below. The project seeks to replace 150,000 residential meters every year.
Commercial losses refer to the volume of water lost due to theft and inaccuracies in metering and data handling. Maynilad estimates that commercial losses account for 24% of its Non-Revenue Water (water losses).
Since the MPIC-DMCI consortium took over the company in 2007, Maynilad has recovered almost 79 million liters of water per day through its meter management program.
“Water meters of residential customers have an economical optimum life span of seven years. Through our timely replacement of water meters, our customers can be assured that we accurately record and bill their consumption,” said Maynilad President and CEO Ricky P. Vargas.
Maynilad is the largest private water concessionaire in the Philippines in terms of customer base. It is a concessionaire of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) for the West Zone of the Greater Manila Area, which is composed of the cities of Manila (all but portions of San Andres & Sta. Ana), Quezon City (west of San Juan River, West Avenue, EDSA, Congressional, Mindanao Avenue, the northern part starting from the Districts of the Holy Spirit & Batasan Hills), Makati (west of South Super Highway), Caloocan, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Valenzuela, Navotas and Malabon all in Metro Manila; Cavite City, and the towns of Bacoor, Imus, Kawit, Noveleta and Rosario, all in Cavite Province.
