A Watercare Disconnection: $11,996.07 to Cap a Water Meter
A water meter. One of the new electronic ones, no bigger than the old brass type. It sits on private land, about 1.5 metres back from the kerb. The job was to disconnect it and cap it off.
Charge to customer: $11,996.07.
- Disconnect water meter: $637
- Technical assessment, 1.5 hours: $323
- Excavation: $1,389
- Reinstatement: $2,326
- Traffic management plan: $7,321
A $7,321 traffic management plan on private property. Is this to park the worker’s truck? How many trucks? That works out to be about three days.
So some questions for the monopoly:
Did anyone actually look at this before it went out the door?
When will you stop using shelf rates that bear no relation to real market prices?
When you are a monopoly, there are rules meant to make you behave as if you sat in a competitive market. Surely this is a bit ridiculous.
While certainly not on the scale of the Wellington Public Libraries $600,000 website, it is in the same bucket of senseless costs. Thankfully, in this instance, the ‘target’ did have the sense to check.
And to my fellow developers: question the quotes you are given. Do not be sheep. Remember that shepherds cannot protect you from every fox, and foxes will look for gaps. Naivety is a gap.
