Originally posted on November 14, 2016

JEDDAH — Residents of Al-Nuzha district-2 in Jeddah have threatened to take legal action against the National Water Company for not supplying drinking water regularly through pipeline for the past eight months and forcing people to depend on private water tankers.

Al-Nuzha-2 is located near Baraa Bin Malik Mosque, north of Jeddah and its residents say they have not received water through NWC pipeline for more than eight months. “This situation has turned lives of people in the district upside down,” said Mohammed Al-Motairy, one of the residents.

He said lack of drinking water has hit Al-Nuzha residents morally and materially as they had to spend a lot of money to fetch water by private tankers. “We have decided to sue the water company for failing to supply water for the past eight months,” he added.

Shortage of water has caused material damages to residents, who have urged authorities to intervene to end their difficulty, said Saad Waalan, another resident. “The problem is getting bad to worse months after months,” he told Okaz/Saudi Gazette.

He said the lack of water has affected all members of family. “We’ll sue the National Water Company for causing us problems for the past eight months. We have not received any positive response from the company although we had lodged several complaints,” he added.

Hamid Al-Mustadi also emphasized the need to sue the company for Al-Nuzha-2 residents’ material damages. “The presence of water tankers has become a hallmark of the district,” he said. “Tanks in our homes have not received water from NWC since Rajab 1437H,” he added.

Abdullah Al-Farsi also held NWC responsible for the suffering of Al-Nuzha-2 residents. “We have approached the company several times to end our suffering but they have ignored our pleas without taking any action to solve the problem,” he explained.

“Even last week we visited the company’s office requesting action but they did not realize the intensity of our problem,” Al-Farsi said while urging higher authorities to intervene to solve the problem and punish negligent NWC officials.

Dakhilallah Al-Radadi expressed his hope that the Makkah governorate would intervene and force NWC to solve the water problem in the district as quickly as possible.