Water Accounts and Customer Relations
The number of consumer accounts continued to rise at a rate of about
2 per cent per annum and the consumer account base expanded to
approximately 2.18 million accounts at the end of 1997. The Sewage
Services Ordinance came into effect on April 1, 1995. For administrative
convenience, sewage charges and water charges are combined into a
single bill and the Water Supplies Department acts as an agent to collect
general sewage charges on behalf of the Drainage Services Department.
Computer systems were widely employed to provide efficient enquiry
services; to handle applications for water supply and change of consumer
particulars; and to issue demand notes for water and sewage charges,
connection fees and water deposits.
Efforts to promote the autopay service continued, and the number of
consumer accounts using autopay for payment of water charges reached
318 000, or about 14.6 per cent of all consumers. The Payment-by-Phone
service was also well received and about 10.4 per cent of the total
payments received were using this service at the end of 1997.
In August 1997, the Water Supplies Department participated in a one-stop
consumer registration service introduced by the Hong Kong Housing
Authority. This lets a new tenant of a housing estate apply for utility
services such as water, electricity, gas, and telephone by signing a Form
of Consent to authorise the Housing Authority to release his personal
particulars through e-mail to the utilities for processing his application.
The department also announced in July its achievements against
performance targets for the past year which showed improvements over
those of the previous year in most areas. Most achievement rates were
close to, or reached, 100 per cent. New enhanced performance targets
were also publicised.
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