Students tell of water disruption on campus

INTERMITTENT water supply is wreaking havoc on the lives of students boarding in dormitories at the University of the South Pacific.

Students claim they were told to collect rainwater to bathe, some were forced to miss classes and toilets had to be closed off.

Third-year student and boarder Saneel Chhaganlal said this was the first time in three years they had experienced issues with water supply on campus.

He said during the day, water would come on for two hours between 5am to 7am before shut off and supply returned late in the night.

He said a few toilets had to be closed last Monday.

Jack Work, who is also a resident and a third-year law student, said they were told to collect rainwater to bath.

“It’s sad actually because after a tiring day of classes we come back to our halls where there is no water,” he said.

“There’s only one or two halls that will have water and the rest won’t. Once the water gets cut off an email is sent by the school advising students of water outage”.

The USP Students Association’s acting president Lepani Naqarase, Association of the USP Staff president Elizabeth Reade Fong and USP Staff Union president Tarisi Vacala wrote to USP and said they were seriously concerned about the welfare and health of students and staff since the water disruptions began two weeks ago.

The university’s official response to the USPSA and the Staff Union was that “their ability to secure tanker water is also impacted by the greater Suva and Nausori area all needing emergency water supply their limited back up tank system has not been designed for such widespread and extended outages (this latest one exceeding an entire month), a rationing system has also been put in place with the halls staff to switch off the tank stations during overnight and other set times to allow the tanks to try to refill with the limited pressure and the trucks.”