Dear Editor,
Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), the nation’s supplier of water and sanitation services, wishes to thank your publication for highlighting the complaint published in the Thursday, November 14 edition of the Stabroek News, titled ‘GWI has not responded to sewage backup in yard after two weeks.’
The company wishes to apologize to Ms Nikita Clark and those affected by the sanitation problem described in the letter.
GWI regrets the delay in responding to the complaint; the sewage overflow was rectified on November 14. Due to the ongoing large-scale sewerage rehabilitation works in Georgetown, some stations were non-operational while undergoing repairs.
This resulted in a high volume of complaints in October and the utility’s sanitation teams were unable to address all complaints in the preferred manner.
According to Sanitation Manager GWI, Rensforde Joseph, the company’s Sanitation Department was overwhelmed with complaints regarding system blockages and overflows.
This was further compounded by sewer lines being blocked by garbage including clothing, plastic containers, concrete blocks and other such refuse which were dumped into the system by customers.
In fact, the overflow described in the letter was caused by a clogged sewer line in the community which was filled with clothing items, plastics and glass bottles.
The rehabilitation of sewerage pump stations is being closely monitored by GWI with the aim of reducing the amount of times that stations are non-operational.
We thank our customers for their patience and continue to implement measures to improve our response time to sanitation complaints.
For assistance, customers can contact GWI on 227-8701/03 or 04; in addition GWI customers seeking information on the correct use of sewer system can e-mail customercallcentre@gwi.gy;visit www. gwiguyana.com or ‘like’ GWI on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ everydropcountsgy; the company also disseminates weekly sanitation tips via Blackberry Messenger: Pin # 296185f9.
Yours faithfully,
Timothy Austin
Public Relations Officer
Guyana Water Incorporated
(GWI)