PRIME Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has asked the Public Rental Board to look into a complaint about an alleged sewerage leak into a river near Votua Village in Sigatoka.

Villagers claim the Votua Housing sewerage system was the source of the leak.

Village elder Epeli Varara said the river was an important water source during the dry weather.

He said the community rationed water from its main source during the day and used river water to supplement their needs.

Mr Varara said the leakage was discovered years ago, but no one responded to the villagers’ plea for it to be fixed.

Another villager Lasaro Taginabeka, said the housing community was commissioned in 1985.

“Since then we’ve been experiencing this problem but nothing has been done about it,” he said. “We’ve done our own projects with the help of universities and NGOs. We noticed that our children would get skin diseases and marks on their skin because they usually bathed in the river.”

He said the villagers established a project that recycled waste water.

“The project was a success and we are getting supply to our homes but there is still the issue of waste leaking into the river.,” Mr Taginabeka said.

“We hope that Government could help us with this plea because everyone in the village is being affected by this.”

After hearing the concerns of the villagers during a talanoa session, Mr Bainimarama requested Local Government Minister Parveen Kumar to urge the PRB to address the issue.