NANISE NEIMILA
For many women like Ranadi Waqanitavuki of Tavuki village in Kadavu accessing clean and safe water will be beneficial for her family and village too.
Having to carry water in buckets over the past few years will be a thing of the past for villagers in Tavuki after the commissioning of their new water project. “We are grateful to the government for facilitating the completion of this new water piped system that will not only ease the burden for us villagers but women in particular.”
“There were frequent water cuts in the past and for us women we depend on water for cooking, fetching drinking water for children but now it will be easy with the new piped water system.”
With the commissioning a $189,803 water project by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama last week, the head of government is reassuring all Fijians that Government is working towards achieving its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 by ensuring that Fijians have access to clean water and sanitation.
The 160 villagers will now have access to a clean, safe and properly piped water system.
While commissioning the fully-funded Government project, PM Bainimarama said villagers will now be able to access clean and safe drinking water from the comfort of their own homes.
Prime Minister Bainimarama adds that the Government has done their part in providing a reliable system which would supply water to them but the onus was on the villagers to utilise this resource wisely.
“A broken water system is a health disaster waiting to happen. Water must be kept pure and safe, and that requires us to constantly monitor and assess the systems that are in place.
We need to be sure that the systems are resilient and will continue to function through storms and other natural disasters. But we need to be sure that they continue to function properly even when they are not under stress.”
“This new system was tested during Tropical Cyclone Harold, and it emerged with only minor damage. Harold did not take your water because it had been secured through better infrastructure. As any of us who have reached a certain age knows, everything breaks down just a little over time. I wish I could do all the things I could do when I was 25 years old, but I can’t.”
The Head of Government highlighted that water systems age, too, and when they do, we need to fix them.
“The difference between water systems and people is that we can actually make water systems like new again. That is what the Water Authorityra of Fiji has done here. For years you have had to suffer intermittent water supply. You never knew when you could draw water and when you couldn’t.”
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