Manila Water Company Decided Not To Involve Consumers In Paying Penalty Fines
MANILA WATER – The Manila Water Company decided to pay 1.1 billion fine given by Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System or MWSS.
There was a water supply deficit recently in Metro Manila that affected many residents. Following the shortage of water supply, the board of MWSS penalized Manila Water with the said 1.1 billion fine.
MWSS Board penalize Manila Water with P534.05 million and P600 million for developing a new source for water supply. This is with connection to the supply shortage in several areas under its service coverage last March.
Fernando Zobel de Ayala, chairman of the Ayala-led water company, said it is time to “move forward” and decided to just pay the 1.1billion dollar fine instead of bringing it to an arbitration body to contest it.
This is based on the article from MSN News. Based on the article,
Payment of the imposed fine will also be shouldered by the company alone and will not be passed on to the consumers.
Fernando Zobel de Ayala said that it is the best way to deal with it. In his statement:
“It is best we pay the fine. It will not be passed on to consumers, it will be absorbed by the company.”
He also said that arbitration cases take too long and are complicated. So it is better to just accept the fine and ‘move forward’.
Meanwhile, industry sources said that Manila Water is allowed to contest the fine imposed by MWSS since the concession agreement does not include a provision that penalizes a water company if the cause is inadequate water supply from the government.
The industry sources explained the entirety of the scenario in a brief statement:
“Remember, the concession agreement of the water utilities is for distribution of water but what if there is no water to be distributed?”
That is all there is to it, at least for now. We’ll post updates as soon as we got them.