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Water, electricity return to West Berbice

Oct 22, 2008 News

The strike, which crippled sections of Berbice, ended yesterday after some normalcy in electricity supplies was restored to the region with the electricity supply.
Yesterday, Regional Chairman, Harrinarine Baldeo, in an interview with Kaieteur News, said that the situation is tense.
He said that the Onverwagt power station, in West Coast Berbice has been restarted, resulting in much needed ease for residents.
According to Baldeo, while there were constant blackouts along West Coast Berbice, the situation worsened over the weekend forcing residents to take to the streets in protest over the non-supply of electricity and water.
On Monday, GPL workers managed to weld a crack that was discovered on one of the engines at Onverwagt but could not give any guarantee that the seal would hold.
“Since last night (Monday night) we start get back current and water running also. Whole night we get current and (yesterday) only 15 minutes of blackout we had,” the Regional Chairman said.  He said that the Region has been supplying water to the hospital.
At present, GWI is running its pumps all night as long as there is electricity.
Standby generators have been installed at Rosignol, Ithaca and at Number Four Village.  “The company cannot afford to put in standby generators at all the pumps…so they focused on the most populated areas…But right now all the areas are getting water,” he noted.  Because of the lack of electricity, residents were suffering and it is obvious that they would be agitated, Baldeo noted.
Referring to the situation at the hospital, Baldeo said that it was expected that the nurses would have complained because it is very difficult to work under such circumstances.
“We cannot vex with the people for protesting. The situation is causing much suffering,” Baldeo said.
On Monday, Chief Executive Officer of GPL, Bharat Dindyal, said that by this weekend the situation at Berbice will return to normalcy.  He pointed out that much effort is being put in place to rectify the situation.
Over the past week, West Berbicians have been without electricity for most of the day, while the supply of potable water has been inconsistent.
For some villages, there has been no supply of electricity or water for more than three days.
On Monday, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said that over the past two weeks, there has been a shortage of electricity generation in Regions Five and Six.
According to the Prime Minister, while he understands how difficult it is for residents and households in those areas to be living without electricity and water, efforts are being made to rectify the situation.
On Saturday last, Prime Minister Hinds and members of the GPL board toured Regions Five and Six.
Over the past week, there have been two failures at Onverwagt power station, where one engine went down twice.

(Tusika Martin)

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