Dr Horace Chang, minister of water and housing, learns how to use a tractor during the ground-breaking ceremony for the Wellington and Hunts Town water supply project in Hunts Town on Wednesday. - Photo by Nedburn Thaffe

PORT MARIA, St Mary:

Residents of the communities of Wellington and Hunts Town in St Mary are to benefit from a water supply system after years of going without the commodity in their pipes.

The water system is estimated to cost $46 million and is to be completed by March 2009.

Minister of Water and Housing, Dr Horace Chang, who was present at the project's groundbreaking ceremony in Hunts Town on Wednes-day, said the move was in keeping with the government's millennium goal of providing potable water to all Jamaicans by 2015.

The first phase of the project will be pipe laying. This is to harness a spring flow from the adjoining, Union Hill community where the water is to be treated and pumped into the proposed service areas.

Provisions being made

The minister told scores of eager residents that provisions were being made to construct a pumping station in Union Hill, as well as a 225,000-litre steel bolted tank in Wellington.

Two hundred and fifteen households are expected to benefit upon the project's completion next year.

Chang sought to assure residents that despite budgetary constraints; the government was committed to improving the country's water system without overburdening customers.

Sixty contracts have been signed to improve water systems throughout Jamaica over the last year, including communities in Manchester, St Ann, St Elizabeth, Portland and Clarendon.

- Nedburn Thaffe