The chief executive officer of the Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) has been instructed to review the state of its asset management within the Suva-Nausori corridor.
Minister for Public Works, Transport and Meteorological Services Ro Filipe Tuisawau said the water woes experienced last week and into the weekend was a “direct result of years of under investment and lack of long-term planning for water services” by the previous government.
“We have inherited a water supply system for Fiji’s capital city with no redundancy in the system to withstand rainfall variation or even to carry out essential repairs without impacting the whole city and impacting peoples’ lives,” Ro Filipe said.
“As Minister in-charge, I stress that this situation must be rectified and we as a government will commit to improve this situation in our four-year term.
“As such, I had instructed the CEO to carry out an urgent review of the state of asset management of other critical assets within Suva-Nausori, to ensure this Government can urgently invest in critical asset improvement works needed to avoid such incidents (water woes) in the future.
“This is already in progress.”
Ro Filipe will be visiting the Waila Water Treatment Plant, the site of the major shutdown and Waila Intakes this morning and will meet the WAF management to discuss current operational efficiencies and the Capital Investment Plan for the Suva-Nausori water system.
“Right now, the WAF team’s focus is to ensure system is fully recovered, and I am closely following the progress of the same. Once we have fully recovered, my focus will shift to ensuring we have investment plan ready to build a good standard water supply for our Capital City, not one that is hanging together by a piece of string.”
He said the Rewa Water Supply Project in Viria will partly alleviate the situation “but significant investments in pipe upgrades, pumps, additional river intakes, dams, water treatment facilities, including waste water and additional reservoirs will be needed in and around Suva City and we have already begun preliminary scoping, feasibility and engagements with financiers and development partners have already begun including my direct approaches to them as Minister.”
