Maynilad’s questionable advance collections

To avoid the acrid exchange of replies and counter-replies, Maynilad should just open its books for audit and be transparent as consumers’ organizations would want it to account for the following consumers’ and taxpayers’ money:

1. The total advance collections in Maynilad’s hands for the mothballed projects, namely, Laiban Dam and the Angat Dam Irrigation Replacement Project. Per computer print-outs provided by the MWSS Regulatory Office, the advance collections for these two items alone have reached about P6 billion.

2. The total advance collections—from 2003 up to the present—for sewerage, sanitation fees and the 10-percent environmental fees. To this date, not a single meter of tightly sealed sewerage pipe has been installed by Maynilad; and since 2003 up to the present, no provision for sewerage and sanitation is in place, resulting in health problems like leptospirosis, dengue, typhoid fever, which have become very common in Metro Manila.

3. The total costs of water infrastructure projects awarded by Maynilad to its affiliated companies at very, very high costs—like the recently started sewerage and treatment plants in Quezon City where sewerage pipes have yet to be interconnected therewith; or like the Putatan Water Pumping Plant in Muntinlupa where water consumers and taxpayers shoulder the very prohibitive costs of construction and the payment of huge loans from the Asian Development Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. for the  facility.

4. The total amount of income tax payments collected by Maynilad from consumers through their monthly water bills, even as Maynilad enjoys a six-year income tax holiday granted by the Board of Investments.

—RODOLFO B. JAVELLANA JR.,

president,

Water For All Refund Movement,

[email protected]