After years of pleading with officials for potable water, the residents of Jackson Creek and Molsen Creek were delighted yesterday morning as the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) commissioned a water distribution network in Molsen Creek.
Residents of both villages on the lower Corentyne will now receive potable water in their homes for the first time ever.
Managing Director of the GWI, Dr. Richard Van-West Charles explained at the commissioning ceremony held in Molsen Creek that the entire project cost some $10 million,
whilst noting that the project was long overdue. He pleaded with the residents gathered to “care the system and protect the system”.
Van-West Charles then committed to ensuring that a solar water well is placed in the area before year end. “I commit to you that before the end of the year we will find the resources to also drill a [water] well in the community,” he said. Charles also congratulated the GWI staff in Region Six who visited the area about three weeks ago, and then immediately began work to ensure that the residents received water at the earliest opportunity.
The project began only after residents of the area voiced their plight at a recent outreach meeting in Crabwood Creek with the Minister of Social Protection, Amna Ally who then set out to bring some sort of relief to the residents.
Ally noted that after hearing how for years the residents had not been afforded the basic necessity of potable water, she decided to make it her mission to ensure a change. She said after hearing the residents’ complaints about water, “I immediately spoke with Van-West Charles who readily responded.”
She told the residents that a water well is foreseeable in the near future. Ally emphasized that one of the government’s main priorities is development for all of Guyana.
Stabroek News spoke to one resident of Molsen Creek, Rajin Kumar, 53, who has been living in the village for his entire life and will benefit directly from the distribution network. He related that the promise of water had been made several times in the past by the previous administration. However, the man said that the former PPP/C government never fulfilled the promise they had made. He added that he is happy and grateful for the water.
“Now we seeing the water, I’m grateful for it”, he said.
