Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
SYDNEY Water has increased its profit by 10 per cent this year against a background of slashed jobs, rising water bills, and a 31 per cent spike in billing complaints and complaints about meter reading.
The state-owned corporation made a $415 million profit in 2012-13, its annual report shows, and it will give the state government a dividend of $291 million - the highest figure it has handed over in five years.
But Sydney Water has received an 11 per cent increase in complaints in the past two years, with complaints up last year "mostly due to a 31 per cent increase in billing and account complaints related to meter reading issues".
"In 2012-13, 1280 properties experienced water pressure less than 15 metres head - the industry standard - compared to 572 properties in 2011-12," the report also said.
"The lower pressure was caused by system capacity issues (204 properties) and unexpected interruptions to networks (1076 properties).
"Cash receipts from oerpations in 2012-13 were $2.4 billion, $174 million higher than in 2011-12. This increased because of higher water sales."
The Opposition has pointed out how Sydney Water has slashed 450 staff over the past three years while its senior executive service staff numbers had risen from 267 in 2011-12 to 290 in 2012-13.
Of those, Managing Director Kevin Young is one of the top paid state bureaucrats, on $661,925 a year.
Water and sewerage bills are to increase by $72 over the next three years with residential customers in a typical apartment in Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains to cop an increase of $134 over three years.
"Make no mistake, these record profits were gouged out of the household budgets of struggling Sydney families," the Opposition's water spokesman Walt Secord said.
"Sydney Water is a public utility and it provides an essential service; it should not be used to extort dividends from NSW families combating cost of living pressures.
"The O'Farrell Government is using Sydney Water like a dripping Christmas ham.
"In Opposition, Barry O'Farrell promised to combat cost of living pressures, but in Government, he is only adding to them. Instead, NSW families got higher water bills and poorer service under an O'Farrell Government."
A spokeswoman for Sydney Water said the organisation as a state-owned corporation was "required to operate as an efficient business" for its 4.5 million customers and did its best "to keep customer bills low while also paying a dividend that is used by the NSW Government to fund health, education and infrastructure services for the people of NSW".
"Sydney Water prices between 2012-13 and 2015-16 will go up by less than the rate of inflation," the spokeswoman said.
"In the previous four years bills increased by $861.
"Sydney Water's increased profit is a result of ... higher than predicted water sales and improved operational efficiencies.
"The dividend ratio of 70 per cent that Sydney Water will pay the NSW Government is less than the average 78 per cent ratio paid in the last four-year price path.
She said an almost halving of Sydney Water's workforce in recent years was because more work was being outsourced.
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