By Yunus S Saliu
It is awful seeing and hearing residents of Bijilo, especially people staying around the QCity area, crying about no water supply in the area for the past four months while the Nawec water bills keep coming as distributed by the company’s bill distributors.
People of this area have been experiencing this problem since and they have experienced it to the apex that has no alternative than to cry out loud to Nawec to give them one of their social amenities rights to have access to good portable water.
Speaking to residents of the area, Alieu Jobe said it is difficult to get a single drop of water from the tap, explaining – “I work in Banjul when I close it will take me between one to two hours to reach home. But it is always a sad moment for me each time I remember that I have to scout for water when I reach home because there is no water supply in this area for months now!”
There is no water running from the tap “but the bill keeps coming, we are tired of this degrading situation,” he said angrily.
Mamat Jabbie, a family man with two young children and a wife narrated that he bought a hose-pipe of 100 meters that he uses to siphon water from the tap from one of his neigbour’s compounds that is having a borehole.
However, Mr. Jabbie explained that his neighbor extended a tap outside the fence of the compound for people in the neighborhood to access free water “but unfortunately someone stole or removed the tap head and returned us to scavenging for water from one corner to another.”
Kaddy Njie lamented the situation which she too described as ‘degrading’ to people of the area “it is very inconvenient for us because water is very essential to us. You can buy bottled water to drink but is it possible to buy it to wash clothes, cook, bathe, go to the toilet among other uses of the water every day?”
Aminata Sanyang added her voice that her brother has made some calls to the Nawec office over this none availability of water but nothing has changed saying “my brother wrote and complained on Nawec’s Facebook page no response. He took it upon himself and went to their Bijilo branch office at the turntable nothing comes out of this, everyone in the neigbourhood is complaining while Nawec is doing nothing to help.”
