THE inconvenience of joining a line to access water and fetching it for long distances will soon be a thing of the past for over 2500 residents of Durban Backlands squatting area, with the help of the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI)

This was realised on Friday during a walk-through in the community by GWI’s Managing Director, Dr. Richard Van-West Charles on the request of village representative, Kyle Solomon.

In a release to the media, it was noted that the squatting area, located behind the Chinese Embassy on Mandela Avenue, sees residents currently accessing water from limited makeshift standpipes and the East Demerara Water Conservancy.

While regularisation is yet to be done, Dr. Van-West Charles, accompanied by Mr. Solomon, Dr. Astell Collins of the Ministry of the Presidency and other GWI officials, assessed the water concerns of the area. Dr. Van-West Charles advised the residents against tampering with GWI’s infrastructure, noting that such actions are illegal and can cause contamination in the pipeline.

However, he encouraged: “Once we proceed and we begin to layout, then we can move to the stage where you become customers because you’ll have addresses and we can arrange for you to have access into where you live. However, when that occurs you have to commence paying.”

The managing director also advised residents to desist from constructing their sanitary facilities on the boundary of the conservancy. He said that GWI’s sanitation department will be contacted to assist with the construction of sanitary blocks and septic tanks, in order to employ the correct method of human waste disposal.

Later that day, a GWI technical team returned to map out the area and determine where lines are to be laid and standpipes are to be erected.

The following day a community meeting was hosted with residents to inform them of the list of works to be undertaken, which is set to commence on Thursday this week with the clearing of lands.

The release stated that following this, the team will move to strategically erect a total of 24 stand pipes along the village tracks while some adjustments will be made to a few property boundaries to facilitate the project. During the initiative, Solomon thanked the GWI Managing Director; Dr. Collins and the GWI technical team for promptly fulfilling their request and working to relieve their prolonged burden of having to fetch water from far distances.

Many of the other residents also expressed their gratitude to have access to potable, running water for the first time.

“I feel happy because I have five children and I does use the water from the ‘blacka’ so they get ringworm. So I’m carrying them to get treatment and sometimes I throw bleach but when I ain’t get money to buy bleach, it raise up back again. So I grateful and happy,” one resident, Tamika Stephen said.

Another resident living in the area for over seven years, Ziggy London, said: “I live here a long time, I fetch so much water till my hand corn up so I really glad for the water and I like wear white clothes. I like at the back here and I glad they start put interest in the community.”

GWI noted that it stands committed to ensuring all residents gain equal access to potable water throughout Guyana.