Water for the Rupununi

FOR far too long the most basic needs of hinterland residents had been ignored by the previous regime. There is nothing more essential for life than water. Yet, for decades, the people of the Rupununi were forced to endure the lack of water during annual periods of drought.

Elderly folk had to walk for miles to access water from rapidly disappearing streams; dwindling waterways had to be diverted by residents; and such suffering had become a way of life.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Access to water is essential to health, a basic human right and a component of effective policy for health protection.” It is therefore unbelievably unacceptable that the previous regime had ignored the plight of the people of the Upper Takutu–Upper Essequibo region for so many years. Fortunately, that situation will now be remedied with the ongoing initiative being undertaken by the APNU+AFC administration to ensure that the right of every human being to have access to water is recognised and realised.

In December 2017, President David Granger and other officials travelled to Brazil to concretise bilateral cooperation agreements between our neighbouring countries. One of those agreements was the “Technologies to Reduce the Effects of the Drought in Region Nine of Guyana.”

The agreement facilitated technical cooperation and collaboration to permit the construction of wells in the Rupununi. Additionally, it allowed the transfer of technical knowledge, administrative capacity and other information from Brazilian experts to Guyanese. That important aspect of the arrangements would allow Guyanese to maintain the wells and even build additional wells in the future.

That essential agreement which had first been announced in May 2017 has now come to fruition. At that time, Guyana’s Ambassador to Brazil, George Talbot, had told the media that the Brazilian authorities were in the process of preparing the framework under which Brazil would build a number of wells in the Rupununi. Alluding to capacity-building, the ambassador had said, “The element of capacity-training is very important on this project, which makes more than just a single intervention of drilling and leaving and building of capacity, so that in the future Guyanese will be able to perform the works.”

To the overwhelming approval and relief of the residents of the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region, the drilling of the fourth well in Awaruwaunau Village, South Rupununi, began on October 16; other wells are also being successfully drilled by the Brazilian army’s Sixth Battalion Engineering Corps (BEC) in the communities of Aishalton, Chukrikednau and Karaudanawa. At the end of this phase of the activities, there will be eight wells supplying water throughout the year to about 50 villages. The Toshao of Aishalton village, Mr. Michael Thomas, said that residents in the areas slated to benefit have welcomed the initiative, even as he noted that it will bring significant relief. The toshao said too, “I would like to thank the government for the initiative placed in our region and our sub-district and in our villages. We are glad for the eight wells that will be drilled in our villages. We are going to benefit tremendously and the residents are already excited to have access to water. We have been suffering for a very long time in the Rupununi, where we have to divert creeks in the dry season but after a time, that runs out of water too; so this initiative is going to benefit us.”

While government may understandably experience a sense of accomplishment at raising the standard of living of citizens, it must be noted that improving the lives of its people is the duty of government; this administration has stated that it intends to give everyone the opportunity to have better lives. As such, the essential needs of citizens – in this case, the need for water – should not have been neglected and ignored for so many years by the PPP administration.

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