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Poor debt collection practices have left Rp 466 billion ($45.67 million) in water tariffs unpaid over the last nine years, putting pressure on the city administration to raise water fees, the president director of city-owned tap water company PAM Jaya said on Friday.

“Had these fees been collected, there would have been no need to increase water tariffs in the capital,” Hariadi Pryohutomo said.

The city administration and PAM Jaya’s partners — PT Aetra Air Jakarta and PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) — are currently discussing new water tariffs, he said, adding that Aetra and Palyja are responsible for managing tap water supplies in the capital.

“The collection of water tariffs should be carried out by the two private companies,” Hariadi said.

Data issued by PAM Jaya show that Aetra has 381,027 customers, out of which 78,221 customers have not paid bills worth Rp 257 billion over the period from March 2001 to April 2009, while Palyja has 405,287 customers, with 102,623 customers failing to pay bills worth Rp 209 billion over the time frame.

According to Hariadi, the debt collection methods employed by the two companies were poor, but his company could only warn them. He did not say why the two companies’s collection system was poor, saying only that prior to the two companies taking over responsibility for water supplies, PAM Jaya had offered bonuses to employees who managed to collect water tariffs in full.

Meyritha Maryani, spokeswoman for Palyja, said her company would review how long the tariffs were overdue and determine how much each customer owed before deciding on the next step.

Meyritha said Palyja’s collection system was based on a bylaw covering drinking water services in Jakarta, which allows the water company to stop water to households that did not pay their bills.

“In urban wards where Palyja operates, we have put up posters informing customers that their water installation would be turned off if they have arrears,” she said.

Joshua L. Tobing, corporate secretary of Aetra, said that his company disagreed with PAM Jaya’s figure for uncollected fees. “Based on our audited financial report of 2008, our uncollected fees stand at Rp 125 billion.”

Joshua said the differing amounts could be due to the basic calculation methods used by PAM Jaya and Aetra. He said that, for example, PAM Jaya considered customers who did not pay on a monthly basis as bad debtors.

“One of our customers, for example, is the Indonesian military, whose water bills are paid by the Finance Ministry every three months.”

Joshua said that Aetra customers who failed to pay their bills would be first given warning letters and if the warnings were ignored, his company would cut off the offenders’ water supplies.