Many residents of Mabaruma, North West District have not seen a drop of water flowing from their taps since January.
Stabroek News was told yesterday that several communities in Mabaruma have been without running water for the past three months and residents said that even though there are pipelines set up in Mabaruma, there is still no running water.
All efforts to contact the Regional Vice-chairman Fermin Singh for comment yesterday proved futile, while residents griped about the shortage.
“Mabaruma people are suffering very much! We have to pay $5,000 for a tank full of water or we would have to use the trench water and that water nasty,” one man lamented.
He stated that residents without vehicles would have to pay the money, while those with vehicles would travel to a reservoir, some two miles away, to fetch water for their families.
“There are pipelines but I can’t remember when was the last time I got a bucket water out of it,” he said. He noted that in 2010, a main was set up and they were given water, but as the years past the water pressure gradually dropped. “First, we got bountiful water then it drop to barrel, then basin, then bucket and then bowl and now nothing,” he said.
A mother of six said she found it hard to take care of her house and children without any potable water. She said she was afraid to use the trench water because it was dirty. “January was the last time I see a drop of water from my pipe,” she said, adding that the relevant authorities had visited the area and promised to resolve the situation but they never did.
“We complain till we fed up complain…all they do is promise and promise. We need water. Some of the people here have six and seven children in the house and they need water to wash their clothes and cook,” she said.
“Sometimes we take a chance with the trench water but it’s not healthy for our children,” she added.
The woman said every day children would be seen walking miles to the reservoir to wash their school clothes.
On Saturday, the residents had complained that the hospital was without water and that they had to fetch it in buckets from creeks for patients.
Singh had denied being aware of any water shortage. “As far as I’m aware the hospital is getting adequate water. The water might have been turned off for a couple hours to prepare the well for the filtering of the water system at the hospital,” he said. The official said that the staff at the hospital might have failed to inform the patients in the hospital about the system being turned off.
A source had related to Stabroek News that people were taking bottled water for their relatives to drink at the hospital since there was no water for them to bathe with or drink.
