People wish for different things for Christmas but this year, a Point Fortin mother’s wish is to have water flowing in her taps again.
It has been eight months since Janelle Joefield has seen water flowing from her pipes and it’s because of a leak in a water line running to her house.
However, she says the problem is that the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and Housing Development Corporation (HDC) are pointing their fingers at each other while she has no water.
Joefield, who lives in an HDC townhouse at Lake View, Point Fortin, explained, “There is a leak by the bin in front of my home about eight months now. It is just terrible. It running all in the yard and I not getting any water upstairs or downstairs to bathe or cook or for those children to use.”
Joefield, who lives with her five children, ages 26, 17, 12, 10 and eight and her 10-month-old grandchild, said she has to depend on a kind-hearted neighbour for water.
She said, “I have to use a neighbour hose to fill up a barrel to have water here to do whatever I have to.”
She said they use more than seven buckets of water a day and it’s no easy task to lift so many buckets of water every day. Joefield is also concerned that the water is now damaging her house.
“The water like it undermining because I see the tiles start to raise.”
She said another issue is that the children cannot play in the yard because it is always muddy.
“The other day, a neighbour child came to play and fell and cut up his hand. It real terrible.”
However, she has been getting the run-around from the agencies.
“I went to WASA, WASA saying is HDC. HDC saying is WASA and is just a set of runaround. I even reach quite Port-of-Spain and I will really need this water for Christmas.”
She said the neighbours were also complaining that the water was running in front of their properties.
“All I am asking is for WASA to come and fix the main so that I could get pipe-borne water for Christmas,” she pleaded.
Contacted yesterday WASA Corporate Communications Manager Daniel Plenty said the leak is located on Joefield’s property and would require extensive excavation works to complete repairs.
“This is the responsibility of HDC. However, the authority is liaising with the corporation to determine how best it can assist in resolving this matter,” he assured.