SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

In­un­dat­ed with calls from res­i­dents for wa­ter and made worse with a lim­it­ed truck-borne sup­ply, Chair­man of the (SGRC) Ken­wyn Phillip says they re­ceived re­ports of an al­leged wa­ter truck­ing rack­et be­ing car­ried out by cor­po­ra­tion work­ers.

Some work­ers at the SGRC were ac­cused of charg­ing res­i­dents be­tween $300 and $500 per truck­load of wa­ter.

“Com­plaints were made, but no one came for­ward to lodge a re­port. We had no sol­id ev­i­dence to take ac­tion. The cor­po­ra­tion hired three wa­ter check­ers to en­sure peo­ple do not pay for the free wa­ter the trucks sup­plied.”

Last year, Phillip said, the cor­po­ra­tion sup­plied truck-borne wa­ter to 15 dis­tricts. This year, the fig­ure in­creased to 22 dis­tricts be­cause of the grow­ing squat­ting pop­u­la­tion and un­planned de­vel­op­ments. The re­gion, which stretch­es from Va­len­cia to Matelot, has a pop­u­la­tion of over 80,000.

“Many of these res­i­dents, we could not help.”

Phillip es­ti­mat­ed that 40 per cent of the re­gion’s burgess­es re­ceive pipe-borne wa­ter, but not con­sis­tent­ly. The oth­er 60 per cent re­ly on riv­er, spring and rain­wa­ter, in­clud­ing a lim­it­ed truck-borne sup­ply.

With the de­mand for wa­ter out­weigh­ing sup­ply, Phillip said the cor­po­ra­tion had to cut the vol­ume of wa­ter giv­en to each house­hold from 400 to 200 gal­lons.

This be­came nec­es­sary af­ter WASA ad­just­ed its wa­ter sup­ply sched­ules due to a lack of rain­fall and the harsh dry sea­son, which af­fect­ed more than half a mil­lion peo­ple.

“I take a lot of licks from peo­ple who have WASA con­nec­tions who be­lieve that the cor­po­ra­tion is sup­posed to give them wa­ter.”

Phillip, the Man­zanil­la/Fish­ing Pond coun­cil­lor, said they are will­ing to help all ar­eas. “Our main pri­or­i­ty is to bring re­lief to ar­eas that do not have pipe-borne wa­ter. Every day we are hear­ing com­plaints from peo­ple not hav­ing wa­ter. Moth­ers in my elec­toral dis­trict have been send­ing their chil­dren to school in dirty uni­forms. Chil­dren wear­ing dirty uni­forms over and over is caus­ing a rash on their skin,” Phillip said.

The coun­cil­lor said he was at his wit’s end.

San­gre Grande North West coun­cil­lor and vice chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion Nass­er Ho­sein and San­gre Grande South coun­cil­lor Calvin Seecha­ran al­so raised con­cerns about the strug­gles faced by res­i­dents for wa­ter in the last five months.

“There are wa­ter chal­lenges in the eight elec­toral dis­tricts. It’s over­bear­ing now,” Seecha­ran said.

Seecha­ran is the head of the cor­po­ra­tion’s pub­lic health com­mit­tee, which falls un­der wa­ter truck­ing.

Seecha­ran said re­cent­ly Swa­ha Hin­du Col­lege in San­gre Grande had to shut its doors af­ter its taps ran dry. The wa­ter cri­sis, he said, has al­so been af­fect­ing sup­pli­ers, busi­ness­es, homes, and schools.

“Pro­vid­ing a truck-borne sup­ply is just a tem­po­rary fix. We need to come up with a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion.”

Ho­sein and Seecha­ran took is­sue with the $750,000 be­ing re­leased in the rainy sea­son. “So tell me if that is not sup­pres­sion of funds,” Ho­sein said.

Phillip said this mon­ey might on­ly last the cor­po­ra­tion a few weeks. He said the cor­po­ra­tion has the largest land space and should have been al­lo­cat­ed at least $5 mil­lion to cater for the burgess­es’ wa­ter needs.

“This chal­lenge we face here is through­out the year—365 days in the year.”

When Ho­sein as­sumed of­fice in 2019, he said burgess­es in his dis­trict, such as Bois Bande, Farm Road, Hor­net Dri­ve, Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve, and Blake Av­enue Ex­ten­sion, re­ceived a reg­u­lar pipe-borne sup­ply.

“Af­ter these roads were paved, wa­ter stopped flow­ing through the res­i­dents’ taps, which was brought to the at­ten­tion of one of WASA’s en­gi­neers dur­ing a tour last year.” To date, he said, the res­i­dents are still with­out wa­ter.