Wayne McLeod Talks About NWC

The following letter was sent to me:

Mark Barnett - NWC President

Good day,

I know you had the NWC on your programme many times and callers were allowed to present their issues first hand. What troubles me most is that none of the issues raised were new and the NWC’s responses had much to be desired and only reflects the lack of concern and disdain that is held for it's customers and their plight.

Case in point.  10 am today I went to the Marescaux Road office to get a duplicate bill that is due this month as none was received via the usual methods (yes sir they can email me). After waiting 35 minutes in a line to request same (yes sir the phone system isn’t working) I was told that a duplicate bill cannot be provided because of the problems they are having with the system, but they will happily provide the balance due and that information was being hand written after consultation with a computer screen, which explains the unacceptably long wait. To pay that amount I would have to join another line to wait God knows how long to reach a cashier as the hall was dark with people and only 3 of the six cashier kiosks was in use. (I have been very unlucky with NWC and they more often than not send me flawed bills so I need to be able to fact check them for my own peace of mind.)

Historically, an NWC bill is produced 3 weeks before it becomes due so bills due in Jan. 2019 should have been produced from Dec. 2018. From December until now the NWC has failed to put a suitable workaround for all concerned in place. Is that because they could not foresee the fallout that would result from the failed system or they just didn’t care because they are allowed to demand payment from customers without the presentation of a bill to validate such payments? Isn’t that in violation of their contract with customers? Furthermore, having not foreseen the fallout, have their weekly experience since Jan. not be sufficient to urge the powers that be to do something efficient and effective about the situation on hand?

 The NWC is actively frustrating its customer by not providing a bill and having them wait an inordinately long time in line to seek such a bill, only to learn that that is not an option, it actively frustrates its frontline staff by unnecessarily increasing their workload under increased demand for their input by asking them to provide hand written notices of payment rather than printing what is presented onscreen when an account is queried thereby, creating opportunities for transcription errors that if it should undercharge the customer penalties to said customer will result. If the customer should yield to their unsubstantiated claim for payment accessing their cashier is made more difficult by under-staffing the kiosks.

Poor management and a cadre of callous, uncaring, inefficient and ineffective humankind is what is on show here. Yes they will blame the system as if it fell from the sky, tested and implemented itself. Their new bill is out, not much improvement on the old, but millions was spent and it zapped the system. Who benefits, who pays for this snafu? And if the new system is flawed why not revert to the old while the kinks in the new are resolved? Why is the OUR not on top of this? Oops, sorry the already frustrated and penalized customer must now lodge a complaint for which he will never be compensated and NWC will never be penalized as is evidenced by the nothingness being done in relation to the NWC’s already established  breaches of standard in regard to notification of outages.

Sorry, how callous of me not to sympathize with them as they are all engaged in ridding the city of the manmade drought that has befallen it from Dec. No one knew what it would take to upgrade the Mandela, the pipes grew old overnight and those that burst in the early stages were quirks and not an indication of what is possible and very likely with increased heavy duty activity, and yes, the pipe that buried itself under 35 feet of construction material was an act of God because the powers that be all knew the old pipes could not survive such stress and would never, ever allow such an activity.

What an injustice!    This is unacceptable, what can be done? 

Regards,