Friday 29th January 2021
Infrastructure Minister Jone Usamate must resign over the daily deterioration in the supply of clean dirking water due to repetitive breakdowns and malfunctions despite his assurances of improvement, said National Federation Party President Pio Tikoduadua.
Mr Tikoduadua said Minister Usamate had assured Parliament on September 1st 2020 that interruptions in water supply due to equipment failure wouldn’t happen again as measures were being implemented to prevent a repeat of such failures.
But Mr Tikoduadua said for the second time in five months, the vast majority of residents in the Suva-Nausori corridor including Rewa Delta, have been without any water supply since Thursday night due to a repeat of similar equipment failure at the end of August 2020 that caused serious water interruptions for over five days.
“This is a sick joke. When there is no rain, there is no water running in our taps. When there is heavy rain, there is no water supply”.
“From clogged filters, malfunctioning purifiers, non-operational of pumps due to generator failures and failure of electrical equipment that should never happen, have become the benchmark of service delivery by Water Authority of Fiji”.
“The Suva-Nausori corridor is Fiji’s most densely populated and busiest centre. Almost one-third of Fiji’s population is in this corridor”.
“The repetitive water crisis is badly affecting the livelihood of several thousand workers, thousands of businesses, ordinary residents, the sick and the elderly”.
“Many workers were sent home when businesses had to scale down their operations yesterday. People had to fork out money on bottled water at a time when they are facing financial hardship”.
“But this doesn’t seem to bother Minister Usamate and the government he serves because they are unable to see the suffering of the people from their dark tinted black ministerial four-wheel drives”.
“Under this Minister, our roads have deteriorated so much that they have become impassable in many places”.
“The buck stops with the Minister under the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. His colossal failures mean the right thing is for him to resign”.
Authorised by:
Pio Tikoduadua
President