The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

MIYA, the water efficiency solutions provider, is “well ahead”of its 2014 performance targets under its Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction contract with the Water & Sewerage Corporation, having created 132 jobs inclusive of its core team and contract workers.

Paul Fanner, director of Miya Bahamas and head of its local operations, told Tribune Business that the company was months ahead on its 2014 performance target.

“We’re now coming up to two years of the 10-year project,” he explained. “The annual average baseline level of NRW at the start of the project in 2012 was 6.87 million gallons a day; this is the volume our project performance is being measured against.

“The performance target for 2013 was to reduce the annual average volume of NRW to 6.49 million gallons a day, and I am pleased to report that we ended 2013 significantly below this figure.

“Due to the impact of WSC’s three-month meter reading cycle, the final volume of NRW achieved in 2013 cannot be determined until mid-April,. However, we expect it will be around 6.30 million gallons per day,” he added.

“Our performance target for 2014 is to reduce the annual average volume of NRW to 5.49 million gallons per day. We are well ahead of achieving this target, having already reduced NRW to an estimated 5.48 million gallons per day by the end of February.”

Miya, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Arison Investment Group, signed a 10-year, $83 million contract with the Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) to reduce the leakage from its distribution system.

The Corporation was losing close to seven million gallons of water a day, which cost it more than a $16 million a year. It is seeking to reduce non-revenue water losses to two million gallons per day by the project’s seventh year.

“What we are doing with the project is bringing in technology to optimise pressures through the system to find the leaks, and using world-class best materials to replace service lines. We’re not repairing service lines; we’re replacing them with the best materials in the world whether it’s leaking or not,” said Mr Fanner.

He added that the company, which has created 132 jobs on New Providence, was looking to build a skilled workforce to manage the issue for the Corporation in the future.

“I have a team of 30 staff in Miya Bahamas, of which four are expats and we employ five sub-contractors,” Mr Fanner said.

“Between the five sub-contractors and our staff we have created 132 jobs on the island, of which four have gone to expats and the rest are local. We are also training a team of people in new skills which, after the end of the contract, could be available to Water and Sewerage to carry on with. We are building a skilled workforce for Water and Sewerage to carry on with and manage this problem in the future.”