NICOSIA will not after all be facing additional water cuts, after supply was increased to the capital after having been cut back last week.
A spokesman at the Nicosia Water Board said the danger was averted as the Water Development Department will now provide the Nicosia Board with additional quantities of water.
The problem came to light last week when WDD supplies were reduced.
The Nicosia Water Board had warned earlier yesterday that hospital patients, hotel guests and prisoners would suffer water cuts unless the WDD went back on its decision to introduce further cuts in the capital’s supply.
“We want the water back so that we can give people water, otherwise the first to be affected will be prisons, hotels, hospitals and industries,” Nicosia Water Board head Nicos Zambakides said yesterday morning.
Zambakides said he did not know why supply to Nicosia had been reduced by 100 cubic metres per hour: “They did this without giving a reason over the last few days.”
Until the reduction, the Nicosia Water Board had worked with 30 per cent reductions for homes and around 22 per cent reductions for hospitals and hotels. This meant the latter had been allowed to enjoy continuous supply. Until this week, the situation had worked like clockwork. Then suddenly the water was reduced by 30 per cent across the board.
“It’s impossible to manage,” he said.
Zambakides said if the situation persisted the Water Board was unwilling to continue supplying hospitals, prisons and hotels with uninterrupted supply.
“We cannot give constantly to them and less to houses. Hospitals cannot have 100 per cent water and homes be reduced to 50 per cent.”
He said the phones had been ringing off the hook and that the situation was as bad as it had been in March when the cuts were first introduced.
“We had been coping fine. There were a few individual problems that could be dealt with, but things were much better. Now it’s like it was at the start of the cuts. It’s a disaster,” he said.
The Nicosia Water Board head, who was speaking to the Cyprus Mail from the UK, said he had already been in contact with the Agriculture Ministry and was hopeful the problem would be sorted out soon.
“The ministry said it would do its best. If it doesn’t, unfortunately we can’t cope so the next thing is to impose restrictions on everybody to cope.”
He hoped that by later yesterday or today the situation would improve. And he was proved right when the WDD announced later in the day that extra supply would be restored to the capital.
