Paulina Quintao – The Minister of Public Works, Salvador Soares dos Reis Pires, said the government has reestablished a taskforce to control and identify members of the community who destroy public water pipes to establish illegal connections to the water grid.
He said some communities do not have access to clean water and this is because of the actions of those who seek to destroy the public water network to make illegal connections to the grid, benefiting only those who live closer to the public water tanks while those who life further away get denied access to water.
He informed that approximately 90% of the public water network is currently destroyed. He said the Municipality of Dili has a total of 76 public water outlets providing more than 50 million litres of water per day to the community.
He added, the amount of public water dispensed is sufficient to respond to the needs of the 200,000 Dili inhabitants, with estimates that only 40 million litres of water per day are needed to adequately ensure all of Dili's residents have access to water. He blames the irresponsible actions of some individuals resulting in many communities not having access to water.
"For the short term, we intend to reactivate the taskforce and we will work with the team of the National Directorate for Water to control and identify illegal water plumbing and illegal connections, to guarantee the community has access to water. We will work hard at this because this is very important and we cannot wait for the implementation of the master plans," he said during a session of an Inter-Ministerial Members Group meeting in Dili.
He said the government has the master plans for developing decentralized water supply systems and to build a water tanks in every neighbourhood, so that every household can have access to clean water. He added that until now, the water supply system has been centralized and has only benefited some people who have taken advantage of the plumbing and connected the water illegally. He acknowledged though that these actions are also difficult to control.
He said, the government already has water master plans for five municipalities including for Dili, Manufahi, Baucau, Viqueque, and Lautem, and will start implementing these in 2019 starting with a viability study and construction to follow in 2020.
On the other hand, the Chief of Sub-village of Fomento II, Suku of Comoro, in the Administrative Post of Dom Aleixo, of Dili Municipality, Imaculado da Conceicao, said this is has been an ongoing issue that has so far not been resolved by any of the previous governments.
He said those who have money can afford to buy water that will respond to their daily needs, but those who have not, need to get water from the river and sometimes they need to knock on companies' doors to fetch water.
"In my sub-village, there is a schedule of running water. There is no water from 8 o'clock in the morning until the afternoon, but there is water between the hours of 8-10 o'clock in the evening," he said.
He urged the government to establish large water tanks in neighbourhoods for water conservation otherwise only some people will have access to water.