No water in Tableland for over a month

PRINCES Town Regional Corporation financial officer Mahabir Gheesan says the corporation was in a "crisis" owing to the failure to release funds to supply water via trucks.

He was speaking as officials of his corporation, the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation and the Local Government Ministry met with the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Local Authorities today at the Parliament building.

He said the corporation has had issues with receiving releases for truckborne water. In the last financial year the allocation was $400,000, but he added that the corporation received no releases and contracts that had been awarded had to be paid for in this financial year.

"In this dry season that we are in now, the situation after we paid the workers just over $100,000, we were only able to award contracts for water trucking for just two weeks."

Gheesan said it was fortunate the corporation had three water tenders to assist.

"At this time it is a crisis within the Princes Town Regional Corporation, because not only in the areas where we are responsible for assisting for water, even in the areas that WASA is responsible for, the electorate is coming to us, because not even WASA is supplying water.

"I can tell you in the Tableland area people have not had water for over a month, and people have been begging us to assist."