NFP Leader says people have had enough of excuses after water disruptions across the Central Division

People have had enough of excuses.

This is the comment by National Federation Party Leader Professor Biman Prasad after reports by Legend FM News about thousands of people in the Lami to Nausori corridor being without regular water supply since Saturday.

He is calling on the Minister for Infrastructure Jone Usamate and WAF Chairman to stop making excuses and do their job.

Professor Prasad says whenever it rains, turbidity is being blamed for water cuts.

He is asking what happened to millions of dollars that have been invested to improve water supply infrastructure.

Professor Prasad is also asking if WAF has changed its filters regularly to minimise or prevent turbidity.

He says they have established that a particular truck carting water only responds to the list the truck operators are provided with. Professor Prasad adds this basically means that if a consumer is unable to contact WAF, he or she will not receive water and has to depend on the generosity of the truck driver to get an emergency supply.

He is asking why is WAF’s emergency supply conditional.

Usamate is yet to respond to comments made by Prasad.

He told us earlier today that water production at the Tamavua Water Treatment Plant has normalised however water supply restoration to people will take time to normalise as pressure builds up within the system.

Usamate says, unfortunately, water supply restoration works are not similar to power supply restoration whereby services are restored immediately as the repair and remedial works are completed.

He adds with water supply systems, service restoration takes time as the pressure within pipelines builds up slowly and in the case of the Tamavua disruption, WAF is expecting pockets from the affected areas to still be facing issues as the pressure slowly builds within the system.

The Minister says WAF is encouraging customers in these areas to lodge a complaint with the WAF call centre so the operations team can focus the service restoration works such as valve operations and flushing works in these areas.

Usamate adds the turbidity they are talking about is in reference to the amount of silt and soil sediments that gets washed into major rivers when it starts raining.

He says the control of human activities within the water catchments is the solution to resolving turbidity issues however this option is not available at the Waimanu River as multiple villages and communities are located upstream of the intake and undertake farming activities to support their livelihood.

Usamate further says to mitigate this, the government has invested in the Viria Project to assist in the injection of additional water supply.

He adds excessive turbidity is experienced at the beginning of every rainy season as silt and dust from the dry period gets deposited into major rivers by floodwaters and runoffs.