Kartabo, Itaballi villages soon to benefit from potable water supply

Georgetown: Residents of Kartabo and Itaballi should be accessing potable water before the end of the year. This is being made possible under a project funded by the Caribbean Development Bank and implemented through the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF); the Project Implementation Unit of the Ministry of Finance.
Project Manager of BNTF Michael Singh, in an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA), indicated that the projects were approved by the CDB and are in their final stages. He said that the projects entail, the digging of 200 feet shallow well and installation of overhead storage and photovoltaic system that would be linked to a submersible pump at each village. “The pump will be powered by solar. The pump will send water to the storage, then by gravity feed. We will have about five standpipes at strategic points in the areas so residents can benefit,” Singh explained.
It is expected that government buildings, such as the Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) and Regional Democratic Council (RDC) offices, Health Centres and Schools will have direct connections to the water supply. “These villages were selected as a result of our needs assessment, where we collaborate with the Guyana Water Inc. They had identified these two areas as areas urgently in need of this intervention,” Singh explained. He further explained that in this 7th cycle, there are eighteen water supply projects that will be executed countrywide targeting Regions Two, Three and Nine. The funds are already committed for the implementation of these projects.
“We also have attached to the sub-project infrastructure, training in Water and Sanitation, where we partner with the Guyana Water Inc. and the Environmental Protection Agency, to teach about safe water, the treatment of the water. We also left a chlorination kit with the communities so they will be able to know how to treat water with chlorine, for residents to have safe water to drink,” Singh said.
Operations Officer of the CDB and Supervisor of the BNTF Guyana Project Karl Pivot, explained that the BNTF programme is targeted at poverty reduction.“We go in the communities, identify where the poverty is, the most needy and we put intervention in those communities, to ensure that the beneficiaries of those interventions, their lives are changed,” Pivot said.
Pivot and a team were returning from Kartabo and Itaballi, where they had visited to monitor implementation of the water projects, when he spoke with GINA.
According to Pivot, the purpose of his visit was to ensure that projects were delivered on time, the designs are as approved and the funds are being spent as agreed.
While in Guyana Pivot will be making random visits to various project sites to ensure they are progressing as planned, after which, he will report on their status to theCDB. “This programme is a grant programme, they are contributors who use taxpayers’ money to provide this funding, so we have to ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent, and there are positive outcomes from them,” Pivot said. He added tha,t negotiations will commence early 2016, for the 9th cycle of the BNTF, and it is hoped that the cycle will receive a similar allocation (US$46M) which will allow more projects to be done.
The Basic Needs Trust Fund of the Caribbean Development Bank has the following countries as beneficiaries for the programme: Belize; Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, Montserrat and Turks & Caicos Islands.
Guyana started benefitting from this programme during its third cycle in 1993 and saw a number of projects in the education, water, and health sectors being implemented. The Lethem and Mabaruma Hospitals, Diamond Nursery School, Number 77 Nursery School and Ithaca Nursery Schools were some of the projects undertaken over the years.