Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) yesterday announced that the company has put a number of measures in place to ensure the stable delivery of water to its customers amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
The announcement was made at a press conference which was held at the company’s office on Vlissengen Road. The company also assured that it has instituted a number of systems to ensure the safety of their employees and customers.
Managing Director of GWI, Dr Richard Van West Charles, told the conference that as the country is now confronted with the now-global coronavirus pandemic, the company has sought to ensure that the provision of its service across the country is adequate so as to ensure that the populace would have access to water as they engage in various public health practices to curb the spread of the virus. Dr Van-West Charles added that on that note, the company has made various provisions for staffing so as to guarantee that the systems at treatment plants and pump stations continue to run on a 24-hour basis.
According to the Managing Director, GWI has also looked at the four quarantine centres that have been established by the Ministry of Public Health to make certain that those centres are benefitting from an adequate supply of water. He told the conference that so far there have been no issues with the provision. “We will continue to monitor on a daily basis to ensure that this important commodity is available in the quarantine centers and at the same time available in homes and offices,” he assured.
He added that various directors of the company have been dispatched across the country to ensure that offices are adequately staffed. On that note Dr Van West-Charles said that the company has taken into consideration the fact that a number of their workers’ children are currently home from school as a result of the closure and as such some may be unable to find persons to care for their children. With that he added that the directors who were dispatched have worked in collaboration with regional managers to find solutions for those workers whether they would be able to work from home or work on a rotating shift system. “All of the staff throughout the country, we’ve had dialogue with them and they’re now in a position to ensure that they can take care of their children and at the same time, provide the service to our customers across the board,” Dr Van West Charles stated.
He further informed that a special effort has been made to ensure that all offices have adequate cleaning supplies and that there is proper spacing in those offices to ensure that there is social distancing. Since frequent hand washing has been promoted as one of the precautions to reduce the risk of contracting the virus, the company has set up a number of sinks along with soap dispensers outside of offices for employees and customers to utilise upon entering and exiting.
“I think it is also important for all of us to recognise that in order to keep this system going we have to purchase chemicals, we have to purchase reagents to test the quality of water, we have to ensure that some other inputs are available,” Dr Van West-Charles said while he emphasised the importance of customers delivering their payments by the due dates so that the those materials, chemicals and agents for the production of water can be made available.
Executive Director of Operations, Dwayne Shako, in his remarks at the press conference stated that there are a few areas including parts of the East Bank Demerara, that the company is unable to distribute water on a 24-hour basis as a result of a deficiency in the supply and demand. However, he encouraged persons to store enough water as they are only able to distribute water up until 10pm before resuming at 5am.
Even as efforts have been made to improve the delivery of service to customers, it was noted that the company is still experiencing problems with services in various areas including Mabaruma in Region One and Amelia’s Ward in Region Ten, however Dr Van West-Charles added that a number of systems are being put in place to provide a solution. Shako said that the company is experiencing “technical difficulties” in Phase Three of Amelia’s Ward, which is a newly developed area at a “very high elevation.” “We suspect that a leak has been developed or a line has been broken but we’re not able to detect where the line has been broken as yet and the technicians and engineers are presently working there,” Shako added.
On that note Shako urged customers to report leaks and breakages to GWI, acknowledging, “in the effort to clean canals and the effort to clean drains and so on we damage the lines and we sometimes fail to report it and then from the GWI side it takes us sometimes many days [to find the breakages].” The executive director assured that once breakages have been reported, the company will try to have those issues handled as quickly as possible.
