Pay electricity, water bills on time in UAE or face cuts, Dh100 fine

Consumers with pending bills shall be given a grace period of four days to make payment.

Failure to make timely payment for water and electricity bills will now cost more as the Federal Electricity and Water Authority (Fewa) announced that a fine of Dh100 shall be slapped against outstanding fees.
Fewa consumers with pending bills shall be given a grace period of four days to make payment; effective from the time they receive an alert text message on their cell phones, according to a top official. 
Mohammed Saleh, director general, Fewa, warned that a fine of Dh100 shall then be added to the consumer's account. "Fewa bills have now to be settled within maximum four days." 
Earlier, Fewa used to force the consumers with pending bills at all the northern emirates to pay extra Dh100 to reconnect the disrupted utility service, he stated. 
"This shall be automatically added to the consumer's account instead after four days of an alert sms message to his or her mobile phone."   
Some consumers reportedly reconnect the service in accomplice with the watchmen of their houses in violation of law to avoid paying the Dh100 fine slapped against payment failure, Saleh explained. 
"Consumers flout rules despite having the service disconnected by staff inspectors after they discovered huge differences between the amount of consumption they recorded and the current ones." 
As such, this extra money is not new, he underlined. "Consumers used to pay the same to have the service reconnected, but this will be automatically added to the consumer's account instead." 
Should the consumer insist on making no payment, the service shall be disconnected with immediate effect, yet with no extra fees for reconnecting the service, Saleh disclosed. 
"Official records show that Fewa electricity consumers hit 300,000, while water consumers amounted to 270,000."
- ahmedshaaban@khaleejtimes.com