GWI officials meet with Hubu residents in light of complaints of poor water quality

Managing Director of the Guyana Water Inc. Dr. Richard Van West-Charles recently met with residents of Hubu Backdam with the aim of resolving their water concerns, after complaints were made about the quality of water they were receiving.

Addressing the residents at the Blake Primary School, East Bank Essequibo, Dr. Van West-Charles apologized to the residents for the low-quality service they were receiving.

He told the residents that as a physician, ensuring quality water is of utmost importance, “I apologize to you as I don’t expect you to be paying for a bad service”.

The Managing Director promised that an immediate and temporary solution will be to serve them from the Vergenoegen water treatment plant for scheduled periods. This arrangement will see residents receiving an improved quality of service. The schedule agreed upon by residents was from 10:00-12:00hrs (10:00am-12:00 noon) and from 21:00-00:00hrs (9:00pm-12:00 midnight).

In addition, the option of delivering water to residents by tankers is also available to residents outside of the scheduled time agreed upon.

Executive Director of Operations, Mr. Dwayne Shako thanked the community members for voicing their concerns and assured them that GWI is committed to serving the community and ensuring satisfaction for the services offered.

However, to guarantee a long term and permanent solution, the Managing Director noted that GWI will be moving to drill a new well to serve the residents of Hubu. He explained that GWI is looking to adopt the approach of well fields, which allows redundancy in cases where one well fails.

“We will immediately seek to drill the new well and it takes approximately 10-12 weeks to complete drilling”, Dr. Van West-Charles said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Van West-Charles told those gathered that Customer Service staff will engage them on April 29 at the same venue (Blake Primary School) to address queries relating to bill payments and metering.

He also reiterated GWI’s message of water conservation and cautioned them to guard against engaging in illegal activities such as bribery and unauthorized connections.

The community of Hubu Backdam was being served by the Vergenoegen water treatment plant. Because the plant was operating above its design capacity, residents received a low level of service and in some cases no service at all.  In light of this fact and repeated complaints from the said residents, GWI moved to activate the Hubu well at a cost of 3 million dollars. Activation of this well resulted in an elevated water pressure to above second-floor level and 24 hours supply. At the end of the project, residents express satisfaction on the well being restored.

However, similar to some 50 percent of the well stations across the country, water from the Hubu well supplies untreated water and therefore it has an average iron content of 8mg/l.

GWI is assuring residents that every effort will be made to improve the water quality being delivered to residents of Hubu Backdam.

Customers with concerns or questions can contact GWI’s Customer Service Call Centre on 227-8701/03/04 or e-mail customercallcentre@gwi.gy.