JUST days after visiting Great Troolie Island, the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has delivered on its promise to provide the community with black water tanks.
According to a release from GWI, a team headed by Chief Executive Officer Shaik Baksh on Monday visited the island to assess the water situation there. The visit was as a result of a request for the agency’s intervention made last month by one of the island’s residents, Ms. Estelle De Costa Wallace.

The CEO heeded this call for assistance, and met with the residents at the island’s primary school to listen to their concerns. With the company’s technical team in tow, Mr. Baksh also paid a visit to an existing well in the community, which was drilled some 20 years ago by the US-based charity, Global Outreach Ministries.
While there, he committed to providing the community with several water tanks in order to facilitate rainwater harvesting, which he advised the residents to do. On Thursday, 12 water thanks were handed over to the residents. In his address to the residents, Mr. Baksh 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 it 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 of about 40 households, and Mr. 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 Agriculture Minister Mr. 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. The interventions will “bring joy into the hearts of our community people knowing that help is on the way,” he said. 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.