Thousands of people living along the Lami-Suva-Nausori corridor will continue to face water cuts until there is sufficient rainfall for the water level at the Waimanu River to increase.
Water usage for car washing, watering of plants and gardens, irrigation of new turf, topping up of swimming pools and washing of hard surfaces like driveways and footpaths is prohibited during this dry spell.
WAF Chief Operating Officer, Seru Soderberg says 6 millimetres of rainfall is needed everyday to sustain supply but rain has been 1 millimetre or less in the last 3 to 4 days.
WAF CEO, Dr. Amit Chanan says if they get more than 6 millimetres of rain for a few days, then river levels will be brought back up and help them bring back the production to the normal levels.
However they will still be unable to meet the demand as they have a supply gap of 3 million litres per day.
This will only be fixed after the Viria system comes online.
People in the affected areas can call WAF for water carting services however concerns are being raised regarding the time it takes for trucks to reach the affected areas and sometimes they do not come at all.
WAF Chief Customer Experience Officer, Sekove Uluinayau says complaints are received mainly because of accessibility of trucks to customers especially in informal settlements where WAF trucks cannot go into small access roads.
He says they have long hoses from the trucks where they can access these houses but some are too far off.
When questioned how water carting is done and prioritised, Uluinayau says they know the areas that are impacted so trucks are assigned in clusters.
He says for the last three weeks they have incurred a cost of about $582,000 for water carting to the affected areas.
Soderberg says over the last weekend alone, they had 540 trips of water based on request from Upper Princes Road area, Tacirua East, Upper Tacirua Heights, Sakoca, Dokanaisuva and Colo-i-Suva. Dr. Chanan further says they also get water from Rewa, Korovou and even Deuba and that sometimes takes time which frustrates people.
He adds for their budget for the next financial year, they are asking the government for some money to provide for water tanks even for those areas that get intermittent supply in the urban areas as there is a need.
He says he has repeatedly made a call for those who can afford water tanks to please install it and they have asked for money from the government to be able to subsidise it for those who cannot afford it.
Dr. Chanan says they have asked for a budget for 10,000 tanks.
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