Tonight, the entire village of Mahogany Heights is without water - and it has been that way for an entire week now.
And the reason that they probably won't get it restored any time soon is because there is a huge discrepancy, which must be cleared up between the village's Water Board and BEL. The position of the residents is that they are being punished for a wrong which was done without their knowledge.
Back in 2009, they also inherited a water system which was connected with stolen electricity. Well, the newly installed water board didn't discover that until early December.
They moved to fix it, and when they called BEL to install a legitimate meter, the discovered that BEL had disconnected power to the pump room.
7News spoke to the Chairperson of the Village who said that BEL will not restore power to the pump room, which then circulates water to the homes in the village, unless a $72,000 dollar bill for 3 years is cleared up.
Here's how the she explained it:
Elepat Skeet, Chairperson - Mahogany Heights
"We found out that getting it from the government there seem to have been an illegal connection. Who did it we don't know, we inherited the system in that manner. As I say out next step was to get that up and running and get that wrong corrected; we got in an electrician who came and did the re-wiring and putting in the service entrance and just about a day or two before we took in the paper for them to come and do the inspection and get the correct meter in place."
"We were out of water and we were not sure what happen. We say well maybe its low voltage, maybe the timer went off or what was the case, on to know that on Saturday the board chairman went to the location at the pump house to find out that the electricity was cut from the lamp post. We then contacted rural development to tell them of our situation and what I learn from the board chairman is that they have contacted BEL who have said that there is a bill for like $72,000.00 and they need to know who will pay that or some kind of commitment. We the board are not able to pay that and as far as I am concern it's the government's responsibility to deal with that situation because they had given it to us in that manner."
"I must say that two times on Sunday and Wednesday night the rural development had loan us a generator to full the reservoir but of course we have a lot of people in the village, so that barely runs us for the day."
7News contacted BEL's Corporate Secretary, Dawn Sampson, who explained that the account which covered the electricity for the pump room was closed by the account holder in 2009. Since then power from that meter was being used without BEL's knowledge or permission.
Sampson told us that the chairperson must initiate an investigation as to how this could have happened, and she must then come in to BEL's corporate offices and speak to the customer care department about it.
Email
Print