Nine months without water

THE EDITOR: The last time residents of Blue Basin Road in Diego Martin had a steady supply of water in our taps was December 2016.

Back then, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) provided a supply two days a week.

Since the beginning of 2017 and indeed for the past nine months our taps have been dry and we have had to rely on a truck-borne supply for this most precious resource.

We are at the mercy of WASA even further as the truck-borne supply can sometimes take as long as a week to arrive.

The situation is rapidly deteriorating as recently we were told that trucks were no longer available.

We have regressed to “catching water” in buckets, drums and any other vessels we can use.

Calls to WASA play out like deja vu — call centre staff find our claim incredible and eventually send technicians who are either unable or unwilling to solve this protracted problem.

Water is the most basic necessity yet our plight has fallen on deaf ears and is treated with no urgency whatsoever by the WASA staff.

We grit our teeth when we see the torrential rains and flooding outside while our taps remain dry inside and more so when we line up to pay our WASA bills for a product we have not received for over 264 days. Where in the world do customers pay for a service they do not receive?

The penalty for not paying our bill is disconnection yet in reality we are already disconnected. The recent admission by the Public Utilities Minister that 50 per cent of water is wasted because of leaks and the possibility that there may be an increase in water rates with Monday’s Budget are pushing us to the brink of indignation.

We are therefore seeking the urgent intervention of the Member of Parliament for Diego Martin East, Colm Imbert and Minister of Public Utilities Robert Le Hunte to rectify this situation post-haste.

JUNE MARCANO, Blue Basin