THE EDITOR, Sir:
I HAVE been a resident of Copacabana, Bull Bay in the parish of St. Andrew for well over a decade now. The arid seaside community is plagued by a perennial water problem. I will ignore the problems of high salinity and calcified nature of the normal water supply. Every year one can be reassured that the National Water Commission's pump at "Rest Haven" will be out of service for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. This problem predates my residency in the area.
I must add that in recent times the response of the National Water Commission in trucking water to the area has shown vast improvements. The trucks have come and filled up our pots and pans and we have managed to use seawater to supplement our sanitary requirements.
Nevertheless the citizens of Copacabana are at their wits end with this problem. The delivery of potable water does not need rocket science. Anyone knows that an economical piped system of delivery is to be preferred to spending millions to buy trucks (capital expenditure) and consequently having a large recurrent cost for staff wages and salaries, purchasing fuel and repairing and maintaining a large fleet of trucks and equipment. I don't know which rocket scientist dreamt this up but we would rather have the Rest Haven pump fixed than waste an entire weekend anticipating the arrival of the 'Water Truck'.
I find it hard to accept that a problem that is well over a decade old cannot be simply solved. May I suggest that a new pump be bought. I understand that this was done but the "wrong" pump was bought. If the particular pump is hard to find then the present distribution system should be reconfigured to use a modern pump that is readily available.
The Office Of Utilities Regulation (OUR) cannot continue to grant pernicious rate increases to utility companies such as the National Water Commission without factoring in required levels of capital improvements around core business processes as well as a favourable level of customer satisfaction.
I am, etc.,
HUGH ANTHONY
PORTER
msfunctionalarea
@yahoo.com
Copacabana, Bull Bay
St. Andrew
