The Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has intensified its water treatment mechanism in light of the coronavirus concerns.
Director of Operations, Dwayne Shako
The company’s Director of Operations, Dwayne Shako admitted that the company still faces many challenges in delivering potable water to some communities including Amelia’s Ward, Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) sections of the East Bank of Demerara, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and Mabaruma, Region One (Barima-Waini).
“We have some areas on the East Bank that we are unable to distribute water for 24 hours but those areas we hope the customers were able to store enough water in the evening. Amelia’s Ward Phase Three, which is a new area that has been developed recently and that area is at a really high elevation and we are having some technical issues,” Shako told the media.
He further explained the issue in Amelia’s Ward is as a result of a leakage which GWI workers are trying to locate. He, nevertheless, encouraged residents to report such if they encounter any.
On the East Bank, he pointed out that there are some deficiencies in terms of supply and demand, however, those areas are receiving water from 05:00h to 10:00h daily.
Moreover, Shako revealed that the company is still experiencing difficulties with its sewage system.
“We are still experiencing some challenges in terms of customers and the usages of the sewage network. We still have customers using a lot of Bounty, a lot of grease, we still have issues where restaurants are not cleaning their grease traps as often as they should and this causes a lot of blockage in the system,” he posited.
With water being key to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, Managing Director of the company, Dr Richard Van West-Charles noted that some precautionary measures have been put in place to safeguard the population against the virus, especially being the sole provider of water.
“Because of the critical nature of water to the preventive strategies in this pandemic, GWI has just sought to ensure that the production around the country is going to be adequate, to ensure that our customers and the population at large would have access to water,” Dr Van West-Charles highlighted.
He further added that “our strategy also sought to address what is happening in our company as a whole in terms of the staffing, the provision to ensure the system continues to run 24/7. All of our treatment plants or pump stations and business within GWI.”
Additionally, he stated that the company’s Executive Directors have been deployed to its out of town offices to ensure that the company has adequate staffing while noting that members of staff with children between the ages of one month and 12 years will be allowed to work from home to ensure that they are properly cared for.
GWI is also working to guarantee that the four quarantine centres established by the Public Health Ministry have access to a 24-hour supply of water.
To this end, GWI has placed a sink in front of its office to ensure that both employees and customers are sanitised before entering the building.
Charles stated that the company’s sanitisation workers will be monitoring the pump stations within Georgetown to ensure that the sewage system is functioning optimally.
