NEW Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) CEO Keithroy Halliday said introducing meters is something the authority must pursue.

Halliday was speaking on January 22 at a media conference at Central Administrative Services, Tobago (CAST), Scarborough.

Halliday, who assumed duty on December 1, 2024, said among his objectives are to restore the public's confidence in WASA and to make the organisation more relevant to today's challenges.

Pivotal to achieving their goals, he said, is to get the public to change their mindset when it comes to water conservation.

"It must not be a reactionary measure during dry season. It has to be habitual," he said.

During harsh dry seasons, WASA implements a ban on the use of hoses, sprinklers, fountains and other outdoor water systems. They also urged people to be conservative in their usage.

Halliday said, "We have to make sure it's inculcated in our culture that water is expensive, it is a scarce resource. We have to find ways of covering that cost, and that leads to the metering."

Halliday said there a many benefits to metering.

"Metering does a number of things, and it something we have to pursue at some point.

"What it does is it holds each of us accountable for our water usage. Metering in most countries really pushes to that, inevitably."

However, Halliday said there are many factors, particularly social, that must be considered.

"(We) understand water is viewed as a social good. It is a critical essential service, and the way you manage it has to take into account those in society that are so challenged...It's not a simple thing to say you're gonna meter...It is a complex issue that needs to be addressed."

Former public utilities minister Robert Le Hunte in 2019 said the national roll-out of a water-meter system would cost $1.5 billion.

It was reported that he had a disagreement in Cabinet in 2020 over his proposal to introduce this system. He later resigned as minister over "a result of professional conflict on policy positions."

On the issue of leaks and repairs, Halliday said "it's being tackled form a number of fronts."

He said the WASA Services App allows for interacting with customers.

"We have a mobile app that we've been using. That app has been reformulated and is being designed to give customers much more interactive experience and feedback...for all leak requests that are sent to WASA."

He said the new features will be rolled out shortly, possibly by the end of January.

"Behind the scene is the introduction of our operational control centre. That is a fantastic facility, really quite impressive. That is what's supporting that app to make sure we have the right linkages, from a technology standpoint, to our contact centre, to create dashboard that we use internally to track and respond as well with the creating of worksheets..."

He said reducing leaks and unaccounted-for-water is a priority.

"If we can tackle that aggressively, then we should see less leaks, less loss of water."

He said leaks would cause WASA to have to pump