Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte will meet with the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) board this week to address two areas that customers have been expressing dissatisfaction about—poor customer service and communication.
This was confirmed by Le Hunte yesterday, one day after Maloney residents staged a fiery protest along the Churchill Roosevelt Highway demanding that WASA restore pipe-borne water in the community.
The disruption in supply was caused by two severe leaks in the North Oropouche transmission main, Le Hunte said.
He said Saturday’s incident signalled to him “as much as we think we are communicating, we are not communicating as well as we should.”
Le Hunte said while WASA sent out numerous press releases explaining what was causing the shortage of water in Maloney, the resident claimed they were not notified and were left in the dark.
“Communication is a two-fold thing. You could say you are communicating. You have to ensure that the people receive the message,” he said.
However, Le Hunte said there are many ways people can be informed through advertisements in the newspapers and public service announcements.
Asked if the people were justified in their actions, Le Hunte said to not have water was a serious thing.
Yesterday, WASA’s chairman Romney Thomas gave the assurance that WASA will ramp up its truck-borne supply to serve communities that are affected by any major disruption in supply.
Thomas said apart from WASA supplying water through its trucking service to communities, the company will also retain the services of a few contractors to deliver water as well.
“We recognise that people will be doing more cleaning for Christmas and will need extra water. We have put things in place,” he said.
Thomas said even though Maloney was not on the schedule to receive water yesterday, they still got pipe-borne water.