Dear Editor,
With a population of 747,000, Guyana seems to be turning back the hands of time.
It’s obvious that Guyana isn’t the richest country in the world, nor is it the most populated but for the last three years, with the arrival of a new government into power we seem to be getting the term “moving forward” all wrong.
Berbice now feels like a separate part of Guyana, and this is very disturbing. Within the villages in the Port Mourant district water supply and water consistency is a major red alert! Water is supplied to the villages on certain hours of the day; however this is more bad news than good. During the times of 12pm-2pm there is no access to running water from the pipelines (most of the time). After 3 pm, our water is discloured.
In our parliament when our national budget was being read the presenter disclosed that they had allocated $3.2 billion to improve the quality of water supply across the country, 9.7% above the projected amount for 2017. He went on to say “We will install an additional 10,000 meters by the end of 2018 compared to the over 10,000 already projected for 2017. Institutional strengthening of GWI will continue to target the reduction of commercial and technical losses and improve the billing system”.
This now leaves me to question, what is this current administration’s interest really? The people? I think not.
Billions of dollars has been allocated towards enhancing our water provision facilities and it’s already six months into the year 2018 and this is what we still experienced.
Is this the water we should be using to cook? Is this what we are to consume and are we expected to give this to our children? With a 3 billion dollar allocation how is it possible that we are still living like we were in the 80’s? Or even the 70’s? It has been too long and we have been through too much as a people to be in a state of using ‘mud filled’ water for our cooking and showering purposes etc. Politicians (namely our government) talk about “building sustainable communities”, but are we sustaining our community’s physical structure? Or are we sustaining the people and everything else?
It’s about time that we shift our focus, from building structures that fall apart in a matter of months to improving and maintaining the ones that currently serve us.
The GWI (Guyana Water Inc) has for far too long ignored the cries and complaints of the people. We are serviced with water that could make our white rice transform to brownish red and even with protest, petitions, cries and pleas, our voices remain stifled under the offices of those in power. We need to make a change and we need to do it now.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Lachman
