Just days after visiting the Great Troolie Island in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has already delivered on its promise to provide the community with black water tanks.
A team headed by Chief Executive Officer, Shaik Baksh on Monday visited the island to assess the water situation. This visit was as a result of a request made last month by resident, Estelle De Costa Wallace for intervention in her community of about 40 households.
The CEO heeded this call for assistance and met with the residents at the Island’s Primary School to listen to their concerns. Along with the technical team, Baksh also visited an existing well in the community which was drilled some 20 years ago by Global Outreach Ministries out of the USA.
At that time, he committed to providing several water tanks to the community in order to facilitate rainwater harvesting and advising the residents on same. On Thursday, 5th August, twelve water thanks were handed over.
In his address to the residents, he committed to testing the quality of the water produced by the existing well and in this regard, a sample has been taken.
The CEO also committed to doing an analysis of the well to determine what rehabilitative works can be done in order for the well to produce potable water for the residents. This, of course, depends on the quality of water it produces.
Great Troolie Island has a relatively small population but Baksh said that notwithstanding that, the objective of GWI is to bring service to all communities.
The visit by the team also proved to be an opportune time for the residents to highlight the difficulty faced in their primarily farming and fishing community with regard to drainage and irrigation. The CEO committed to bringing this issue to the attention of Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha.
The residents showed up in their numbers and were pleased about the interventions GWI will be making to improve access to water in their community. Chairman of the Community Development Council, Nigel Stephen was one such person. He expressed his view that the interventions will “bring joy into the hearts of our community people knowing that help is on the way.”
Another resident, Nicola Stephen asked for a level of cooperation among the community members as GWI improves the water supply over time. She also expressed gratitude to the team for the interventions which will be made.
