The Water and Sewerage Corporation of The Bahamas (WSC) is working to have its regulatory responsibilities for the water and sanitation sector moved to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) in order to streamline its focus on customer service. WSC General Manager Glen Laville spoke with Guardian Business about the direction WSC is taking as it strives to become commercially viable.

URCA regulation
Laville explained that economic regulation is most often presumed to be a method of getting tariff increases. However, he argued that regulation is really intended to ensure that the customer gets the service appropriate to the level of tariff in place.

"So the whole idea with URCA taking over is that we can go to URCA, we can put forward a business case and say, 'this is where we are now'; 'this is how we're going to improve our service to the customers over a period of time'; and 'this is the investments we have to make in order to achieve it and therefore these are the tariffs that we have to charge'.

"Then URCA would be able to look at it on a commercial basis, and if they do give the approval for the tariff adjustments then they would also be monitoring the corporation to ensure that the level of service that is promised to the customer is actually being delivered to the customer and to penalize us if it is not," Laville said.

WSC legislation
The corporation has already drafted legislation and Laville explained that it would govern the water and sanitation sector.

"More specifically, it's going to make us solely a service provider. So we would not have regulatory powers... That would be moved to the Ministry of Environment, so we would be a regulated entity just like anybody else who wants to utilize any of the groundwater resources available in The Bahamas.

"What that does is that it allows us to focus on just being a service provider while those regulatory functions remain within the Ministry of Environment, where they should be," he said.

Regulation
Laville acknowledged that he is "definitely" anxious for WSC to get out of the business of regulation, in order to focus more completely on "what we actually are supposed to be doing".

"What we are supposed to be doing is providing customers with a safe, potable water supply, and anything that deviates us from that course then leads to lower efficiency in terms of us providing the service we are mandated to provide," he explained.

"In terms of resource and environmental protection, that should always be in the hands of an entity other than the entity that is either utilizing the resource or having an impact on the environment, because that raises potential conflicts of interest or the potential for you to abuse the environment, and there would be no other regulator to stop or penalize you."
He asserted that it is always better to be regulated by an independent entity.

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