FLOWER HILL, St James — Pointing out that the Government has spent millions of dollars putting the infrastructure in place to get water to residents of Flower Hill in St James, minister of state in the Office of the Prime Minister, Homer Davis is urging those who have not yet legally connected to the water supply system to do so.

“We have to pump now up to Flower Hill and, from reports, citizens are getting their fair supply of water up there. But what I am hearing from [National] Water Commission (NWC) is that quite a number of persons haven’t yet legally connected onto the system. So I will use this medium to appeal to them to get connected legally onto the system. What you seeing here is about $125 million dollars that were spent,” the minister said of work being done on a part of the system in Torado Heights.

He was speaking on Wednesday during a tour of sections of the Flower Hill Water Supply Improvement Project in St James. The project is expected to be fully on-stream soon.

Minister Davis’ call for residents to connect to the NWC system was supported by minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Matthew Samuda.

“As Minister Davis would have mentioned, the systems aren’t cheap. We want to maintain them, we want everybody to have flowing water through their pipes all the time. But it means that those who are stealing it have to come on to the system legally,” Samuda said.

On Wednesday, both men, along with NWC personnel, toured sections of the project in Coral Gardens and Torado Heights to get a feel of how things were progressing. Work done so far includes the construction of a 100-gallon tank in Torado Heights and the piping of water into Flower Hill community and other areas. Work was done by the NWC and Rural Water Supply Limited.

The improvements to the system are almost complete and, according to Davis, eight million gallons of water have been pumped to Flower Hill residents since September.

Minister Samuda pointed out that when it is completed nearly 2,000 residents of Coral Gardens and Torado Heights will benefit from an improved load capacity of 300,000 gallons of water on a daily basis.

Two tanks have been put into place, one with a capacity of 200,000 gallons and another half its size. The two structures will, respectively, provide water to 1,300-plus residents.

“Between the two systems we should create capacity for an additional 500 customers to come on board and we are doing the piping work for that. We’re particularly happy with the work and seeing it come together. There are obviously some finishing touches to go on but we are ensuring that the work is indeed done,” said Samuda.