The Lautoka City Council believes the Water Authority of Fiji’s infrastructure needs to be upgraded to meet current and future demands.
Council chief executive officer Mohammed Anees Khan shared this in light of a recent issue with a sewer leak in Lautoka. Residents claimed they reported the leakage first to the council.
However, they were quite unhappy about the way their complaint was handled.
“The council has always taken action and facilitated with Water Authority of Fiji to address the matter as council also regards this as urgent and health nuisance,” Mr Khan said.
“The similar situation was in late December 2022, with the road upgrading works along Yawini St when LCC started to receive complaint regarding sewer overflow along Yawini St as it was continuously overflowing into street channels.
“Later, the concerns were raised by residents downstream and Mana St that there was backflow in their property, and the worst hit was Khans Building along Mana St and the bypass was used to find temporary solutions.”
Mr Khan said the compliant was lodged via a Viber group and email with continuous follow-ups.
He said the WAF used machines as it found that situation a bit complex as the sewer line had other items such as stones, soil and other materials.
He explained that residents had followed up on a regular basis or lodged complaints and the council acted as a facilitator to push WAF for remedial action.
He said the council also emailed the WAF chief executive and the Department of Environment for an early solution and the issue was fixed after two to three weeks.
However, Mr Khan said the council was not in a position to assure ratepayers whether the issue was fully fixed.
“The assurance depends on the WAFs effectiveness and finding the long-term solution.
“Now the council is receiving complaints that some of the internal lines are back flowing due to rain.
“WAF teams are able to fix for short-term.
“Long-term solutions need to be discussed at higher levels. Council has highlighted the same concerns with Ministry of Local Government.”
