Lae residents owe Water PNG K28 million.
Apart from households, senior manager, Martin Bigiglen, outlined that the University of Technology owes them K5 million and the Royal PNG Constabulary has an outstanding of around K4 million.
“The Government departments owe a lot of money,” he stated.
“They’re paying but slowly.”
He said though it is frustrating, they have taken residents’ needs into consideration.
Bigiglen said in Unitech’s case, they are considering the students’ welfare, while for members of the public, some have lost their jobs or have retired, hence have no way of settling their bills.
“But the situation is not good because if we continue on accumulating cost like that, eventually the company will collapse.
“This is a very sad situation in the country where the government owes money to service providers like Water PNG and PNG Power.
“We also need money to buy parts and keep things going.”
Water PNG has been carrying out disconnections to households and organisations that have more than two months of outstanding bills.
The disconnection exercise has been halted this week following the water disruption.
Bigiglen is urging residents to be up-to-date with payment as they need to continue to provide water to the city.