After more than 30 years, Bamia gets clean water for the first time

Last Wednesday, Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water Susan Rodrigues symbolically turned on a water main at Bamia, a community along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway that would see some 200 families benefitting from potable water.

For over 30 years, residents have had to struggle to get water daily, at times fetching in buckets over long distances, or worrying about whether or not they will get water each day for their families.

“It is a significant ease on their burden of having to think every day about having to go and source water. Now, water is to their homes. It [is the first time they are getting] a legal connection from a potable water source to their homes,” Rodrigues said during a site visit with other regional officials.

She reflected on how one year ago, she visited the community and the issue of not having a well or a potable water source was raised. “And not for the first time because people have been living here for over 30 years without access to water which is a very undesirable situation.”

“We have made it clear that our target is to ensure that we have 100 percent access to potable water by the end of 2025,” Rodrigues said.

She shared how this particular well during drilling presented many difficulties. “They took a long time to actually find water to a commercial value so we had to bring the productivity up, but we were successful in the end.”