San Quintin WD lost 54 percent of water supply in 2023: COA

THE San Quintin Water District (SQWD) in Pangasinan is leaking like a sieve, losing a whopping 54 percent of its water production in 2023.

The 2023 audit of the water district revealed only 380,416 cubic meters were billed to concessionaires out of the total production of 833,932 cubic meters.

Even more alarming, the five-year record of non-revenue water showed losses have been increasing sharply from 24 percent in 2019, 35 percent in 2020, 43 percent in 2021, 47 percent in 2022, up to 54.38 percent in 2023.

Under the rules of the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), the maximum allowable non-revenue water (NRW) is only 20 percent of the total production. This means SQWD’s water supply losses were almost thrice the maximum limit.

Government auditors noted that the development, operation, expansion, financing, rehabilitation, and maintenance of the SQWD have been passed on to PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp. after the signing of their Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) in December 2022.

They pointed out that under Section 2.3 of the said agreement, one of the listed objectives was “to reduce and/or maintain distribution losses (non-revenue water) to national or industry acceptable levels.”

The audit team noted that PrimeWater has yet to take any action to address the increasing losses in the supply distribution system.

At the same time, it reminded SQWD officials that it is their job to ensure that the joint venture partner delivers on its commitment to the JVA for the benefit of the consumers.

Auditors reminded the SQWD that the non-revenue water rate is considered a key performance indicator to measure the efficiency of the water district.

“We recommended that Management instruct the general manager to …demand commitment from PrimeWater to invest in programs, projects and activities that mitigate revenue losses and promote operational efficiency in compliance with the standards set by LWUA and make a list of reduction strategies into a concrete action plan with specific timelines,” the audit team said.

Water district officials assured the Commission on Audit that they would act on the recommendations by discussing the related issues with Primwater to find a