A damaged pump and the shortage of alum were the two factors that created water problems in the town of Linden but all of this is set to be rectified sometime today, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Water Inc (GWI), Karan Singh.
Singh was at the time responding to concerns raised in a joint statement issued yesterday by the Regional Democratic Council of Region 10 and the Linden Mayor & Town Council.
The two bodies expressed disgust at the company’s operation stating that GWI has “consistently and frequently displayed utter disregard for the people of Linden.” The statement said that the town has been without water for almost two weeks and there has been no word from the company on the cause or a time frame indicating when the problem would be fixed.
Contacted yesterday Singh admitted that the company should have done more to alert the mining town to the problem the company was experiencing in Linden.
“We apologise to the Linden residents, we should have been more careful with this situation,” Singh said yesterday. He also said that he has since called the Regional Chairman Mortimer Mingo and apologised to him. Singh said that the utility should have placed a notice in the press about the problems they were experiencing in the township and promised that it would not happen again.
In the statement Mingo reported that he had called Singh’s office on two occasions and left his telephone numbers with personnel from his office but got no response or information on the problem. However, Singh is saying that Mingo only called his office yesterday and he knows this because all calls to his office are recorded.
When Singh was initially contacted he stated that it was very unfortunate that the two entities waited until after two weeks to call his office. He said after he was told of the problem by personnel in his office yesterday he immediately instructed his assistant to contact GWI employees in Linden and ascertain what the situation was. His assistant later told him that one of the pumps at the Raw Water Intake station was out of order and only one pump was operating which meant that residents were receiving water at a reduced level but it was not a case of them not receiving any water.
Discoloration
Regarding the discoloration of the water, Singh told Stabroek News that he has since asked his scientific manager and her team to visit the mining town and take a sample of the water to have it tested.
He said that they do not have a manager at Linden but there are two senior supervisors. Singh was subsequently informed by an employee that there was no potable water available because there was no alum (chemical used to remove the discoloration from the water).
The statement also said the employee informed that the company’s head office was told of the issue and that water “might be available by the end of this week.”
After receiving this information, Singh said it was the first time he was hearing of the unavailability of alum. He however acknowledged that they have experienced a shortage of the chemical because of a late shipment and they were forced to borrow some from Guysuco.
He then immediately called in some of his senior employees who all reported that they were unaware of the problem of no alum. Singh said that they have a system where on a daily basis reports are taken from all of their locations throughout the country and this is then compiled and read by him. He said the report that he saw up to yesterday did not include the unavailability of alum in Linden.
After some questioning by Singh, one of the senior employees indicated that the field manager may have been told of the shortage of alum in the township.
After some more discussions Singh related that from his investigations GWI employees in that town were forced to use reduced amounts because of the small quantity they had remaining. He said this meant that the water would have had some colour but it would have been treated with chlorine and therefore was safe to drink. Singh once again apologised to the mining community.
The statement by the two councils said that the silence about the problem by the company continues to be a cause for great social unrest in the community while questioning whether the silence “on issues of such importance may be orchestrated to aggravate our residents.” The statement said also that the statutory meeting of the Regional Democratic Council for June faces the threat “of being abandoned since the caterer that provides for this meeting which is held on the first Thursday of each month has informed us that they cannot provide for this meeting in the absence of water to ply their trade.” The statement also said that a number of businesses have been forced to close their doors due to the lack of water.
