“No wata noh deh!” Illegal electricity connection powered village water
The Christmas holidays are just days away but for the community of Mahogany Heights, there is no reason to celebrate. The community has been without water for two long weeks. Their lives have been severely disrupted since routine activities such as bathing and washing have become a major problem. The village chairperson says the disruption has been caused by an outstanding electricity bill for powering the water pump. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Some nine hundreds residents of the Mahogany Heights Community near mile thirty on the George Price Highway are desperate; for the past two weeks the village has been without running water in their houses. The issue is that since 2010, the new Water Board was given rights over the water pump and reservoir which appears to have had an illegal electrical line to the pump. And so B.E.L. subsequently disconnected the power.
Elly Pat Skeet
Elly Pat Skeet, Chairperson, Mahogany Heights
“Last week Thursday, we encountered a problem whereby the water had gone off and we had felt that it was just low voltage that trips the timer that we had. It happened the Thursday, the Friday and the Saturday the water board chair person had to go to the back she found out that it was because B.E.L. had cut the electricity from off the lamppost.”
The water situation is becoming a health hazard as the residents have been unable to cook, wash and bathe. Roland Usher says that some residents have been fetching buckets of water from various spots throughout the village to cope with this situation.
Roland Usher
Duane Moody
“Have you guys been able to wash, to cook, to bathe?”
Roland Usher, Resident, Mahogany Heights
“Noh really, but some people find ways to deal with it. Like yo say, can’t wash, can’t cook, can’t deal weh dehn could deal with. Well bwai I got my lee vat over there to get my lee water, but then they have other people weh got water problem. People dah mahogany heights noh wah pay deh lee ten dollars and we have wah pump dah back deh weh you have to pay fah. But dehn noh wah pay. They rather pay people fi back bucket a dollar water fi dehn instead of pay dehn lee ten dollars ah month that Miss Elly pat the charge cause she is the charlady up yah.”
Water was restored briefly last Thursday just to be cut off again—this time by Belize Electricity Limited, who says that the community has racked up a bill of some seventy-two thousand dollars. But Chairperson of Mahogany Heights, Elly Pat Skeet, says that the illegal connection was inherited by the current Water Board.
Elly Pat Skeet
“Rural Development had given over the water system to the Mahogany Heights people and we formed a board to manage it. Apparently, they had given it over to us with an illegal connection. I don’t know if they were aware or what the situation was, but how it is, is how we got it. 
The water board chairperson contacted Rural Development to let them know of the situation. They in turn contacted B.E.L. and the message related from her to the board is that B.E.L. is asking for some seventy-two thousand dollars—some arrangement, some confirmation—in order for them to go ahead and give us electricity back. That money we don’t have. And in my opinion and in the board’s opinion; that is a responsibility that the government should take care of: one, because B.E.L. is government and whilst we were using it, to our knowledge the situation was there before we got it.”
Skeet fears that with the end of the week approaching, residents will be left without water during the Christmas holidays. Duane Moody for News Five.
Where ever you have black people there will always be this type of problem. Too many of them are lazy and do not want to work. Mr. Usher said it correct…they do not want to pay ten dollars… everybody else in belize pays for their water. These black people expect a handout to survive just like the blacks in the USA….Do not connect the electricity until they pay their bill or come up with a payment plan.
The problem is not the color of their skin, God created and loves us all the same. It starts with their families, seeming to raise children who don’t value work or education. There will always be people who never try to help themselves. I pity the babies they have, who are raised without hope for a better future.
Yes, it is amazing how low humanity can come in Belize in the 21st Century.
Basic and simple systems cannot be sustained.
And then its even sadder when we have to point it out as being a black people problem.
You comment along color lines “coco de rock” is sort of ignorant and smal minded. For your edification black people are the ones that built Belize! All the doctors, dentists, lawerys, police officers, teachers, civil servants back some years ago were all people of african descent. So you need to educate yourself and think before you talk.
By the way it is always better for people to thing your are stupid rather than opening your mouth and confirming it!
None the less I do agree that regardless of the color of ones skin if you want service you need to pay for it! What about just paying your bill? I guess we all still have a little of that colonial mentality: It will not come from England anymore!
doctors, dentist and lawyers, surely did not build Belize, rape belize maybe. cane cutters, orange reapers, banana cutters, fishermen, chicleros they built Belize, check the color of their skin.
CEO-the British built Belize using you all. When they handed it over in 1981-it went to shit-so yes-you guys ruined Belize even if you thought you built it.