Le Hunte: Too much water wasting

It cannot be business as usual at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) if citizens do not take responsibility for conserving water.

Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte said attempts to provide an adequate water supply to citizens continued to elude the utility company. At the launch of WASA’s app, e-Billing Service and Rapid Response and Repair Programme, yesterday at WASA’s head office, Farm Road, St Joseph, Le Hunte said the country’s finances were at a critical stage and as much as WASA wanted to fix everything to improve its water supply, it was not in a financial position to do so.

He also admitted that while WASA received a $3 billion yearly subvention, customers did not have a reliable water supply, because WASA was not delivering the level of service citizens expected.

“We have to be the change that we want. We use more than five times as much water as our compatriots in other countries...we must change our consumption methods,” he said.

Le Hunte also said there were 2,600 leaks in the nation’s roads and challenged WASA’s management to achieve a 70 per cent reduction by the end of this year. That meant about 800 leaks. On a report that WASA was operating with too many employees, Le Hunte said his objective was to do more with less. He said the company needed 3,200 to 3,400 employees to get the job done. However, he said, it would utilise the staff it already had to conduct this new programme.

“Before we talk about sending home workers, we are talking about utilising the workers that we have in a more effective manner. This programme involves about 200 workers from within WASA, so we are utilising our own staff.

“The reality is based on the amount of water that is out there and the amount of connections. If we use international standards, there is nothing to hide, we really only need about 3,200 to 3,400 workers, that is based on the connections and the volume of water produced. It has been the intention of the Government to share the burden of this adjustment and try to keep as many people employed. When people lose their jobs, the cost and dislocation that is associated with that is very severe.”

And since Carnival season was here, so too are wet fetes where promoters use thousands of gallons of water to entertain the crowds.

He said in a country where people complained about lack of water, they should change their conservation methods because they could not have “’wet me down’ and also have it to drink.” Any promoter or citizen hearing WASA’s message of conservation would make the decision not to attend a wet fete, he said, because that was the ultimate control. “You cannot control a society by regulating it and picking up on the many injustices. The way we have to fix society is by our own actions. How could we be talking about water, how could we be complaining as a country, not having water in our pipes and then going to a wet fete? We have to take the decision to be part of the solution and by not attending these wet fetes,” Le Hunte said.