Bennita Kissoon now has access to potable water for the first time after years of fetching bucketsful from generous neighbours to do her daily chores.
Last Friday, Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) finally installed the pipes and connections at Kissoon’s Nonpareil, East Coast Demerara home.
The housewife’s photograph in which she was fetching water, aided by her son along the Railway Embankment Road, East Coast Demerara was published in the February 10 edition of the Stabroek News.
Kissoon had indicated to this newspaper that she had made an application to GWI for water connections at her home three years ago but was told that there was no water main on her side of the road and, therefore, she could not have a regular connection and that it would instead cost her $160,000, a figure she said she could not afford.
Her effort to negotiate a part-payment plan to accommodate the water connection was also denied by GWI, Kissoon said. She had no option but to beg the neighbours for the favour.
GWI had denied that Kissoon had made an application for the connection of water, but she showed Stabroek News a letter that the Central Housing and Planning Authority had sent to GWI referring to a request made by Kissoon for the supply of water to her premises and stating that it had no objection to this as the area was currently being regularised.
It was following a subsequent publication of Kissoon’s plight on February 14, that businessman and philanthropist Sattaur Gafoor offered to pay the amount required by GWI for the connection.
The woman welcomed the offer with gratitude and she anticipated that she would soon get the long-awaited water connection but it took over two months before GWI showed up at her home to make the connection.
“I thank God fuh y’all and fuh Mr Gafoor. Ah don’t have to fetch water anymore…,” Kissoon said. “Dem boys [her four sons] ah bathe whole day now,” she joked, recounting that previously, she had to monitor the amount of water they used for bathing, since fetching it wasn’t an easy job.
