Duo claim water supply sabotage, WAF denies allegations
A SAKOCA, Tacirua couple claims a team from the Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) cut pipes connecting their property to the water supply at the behest of a WAF board member.
Umesh and Ashni Chand claim that on top of intermittent water supply in Sakoca, a man working at WAF used his position and power to arrange a water tank and a new connection to their neighbour’s house, which he visited regularly.
However, WAF denied these claims and stated no one was directed to cut the complainant’s water supply.
WAF labelled the situation a neighbourly dispute and denied all claims, stating the team was neither directed to alter the water supply duct nor was the water supply duct altered in any way.
“Nobody was directed to cut the complainant’s water supply, nor has their water meter been cut, there was a small downtime during maintenance. All work carried out was on the WAF main pipe situated outside any private property. The pipes were WAF assets and at no stage was anyone’s pipes altered,” WAF stated.
“The complainant’s water was never cut. The pipe outside the complainant’s compound was undergoing short maintenance and has been fully restored.
“On Thursday, he came here to check if we had water and to give him permission to run a duct from our ducting to our neighbour’s house so they could have water,” Mrs Chand claimed.
“Later on, WAF personnel arrived with a water tank for our neighbours to fill it and WAF personnel made a new connection to their house.”
She also claimed on Friday morning, a WAF team arrived to remove the ducting work they did the day before and cut her residence off completely.
Mr Chand said initially, they did not want the new ducting because as far as they knew, it was an illegal connection.
“We offered to share water with them but not to do the connection,” he said.
“We wrote a complaint letter and have sent it to WAF already.”