Maynilad cuts water rates

Maynilad Water Services Inc. implemented its rate reduction yesterday as a result of the downward adjustment of the company’s Foreign Currency Differential Adjustment (FCDA).

Because of the strong performance of the peso in the past months, Maynilad said the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) has allowed it to lower its FCDA effective second quarter of the year by 2.71 percent of the basic tariff rate of P23.05 per cubic meter or P0.19 per cm.

Together with an earlier reduction of P0.43 in the FCDA that took effect last January, the FCDA charge of Maynilad has been reduced by a total of P0.62 per cubic meter.

“This is apart from the 20 percent reduction of the water tariff for all residential customers with a monthly consumption of 10 cubic meters and below, which went into effect March 10, 2008,” Maynilad said.

A West Zone residential customer consuming 10 cubic meters of water and who normally pays P116.46 will only pay P95.96, or savings of P20.50.

There are around 150,000 households involving 1.3 million people in the West Zone who fall under this category, it said.

FCDA is a tariff mechanism granted to utility companies with foreign currency denominated loans assumed from the government to allow them to recover or compensate for fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates. In the case of Maynilad, it assumed 90 percent of the MWSS foreign loans when it took over operations of the West Zone in 1997. – Katherine Adraneda