Tighter water restrictions to come, says Samuda

MINISTER of Water, Environment and Climate Change Matthew Samuda has put Jamaicans on warning for even tighter water restrictions come Monday, as the country continues to suffer with worsening drought conditions. But Samuda says the Government is providing even more assistance in the worst-affected areas. You could see in the next few weeks some communities which get day-on-day-off supply.

That is something that we’re putting the nation on guard for. And that means that we need greater coordination with our facilities, especially our education facilities and health-care facilities, to ensure that we are indeed supplying communities in longer periods of shortage,” he said adding that as of Wednesday morning, water storage level at the Mona Reservoir stood at 33.5 per cent while Hermitage was at 48.3 per cent. Thompson, the principal director of the Met Service, speaking on an OPM on Air session on Nationwide News on Tuesday, said drought conditions have worsened in more than half of the island’s 14 parishes, and that some parishes could see little to no rainfall in a single month, if current conditions persist.

Meanwhile, Samuda said his ministry has initiated emergency procurement procedures to purchase 5,000 black water tanks. One thousand tanks will go to the early childhood institutions that are engaged with the Early Childhood Commission in the certification process. The second thousand will go to Rural Agricultural Development Authority for distribution amongst our farmers who are critical to food security, “to ensure that their livelihoods are not disrupted beyond what we can give them as additional support,” the minister said.

“The third category for distribution is indeed working with the Ministry of Labour through the disabled communities. We will be providing tanks to households with persons with disabilities who need it, and we’re working on the screening process with the Ministry of Labour,” he told Wednesday’s post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House. According to Samuda, the remaining 2,000 …