By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

WORKS and Utilities Minister Alfred Sears said the government is working to reduce the debt it owes to companies contracted to supply water to several Family Islands.

While he could not say exactly how much is owed, Mr Sears said he understands the amount is substantial.

“There are a number of desalination plants within our country which supply water not only in the Family Islands but also in New Providence and over the years, a lot of arrears have built up,” he said yesterday.

“The government has been paying off on those arrears. In fact, under my tenure, I’ve carried a number of Cabinet papers to pay off the arrears and also the Ministry of Finance is in consultation with a number of these desalination operators to restructure and reschedule.

“Water is the most important resource for life and therefore, we are giving it high priority and we’re also ascertaining and doing an inventory of the natural water reserves within the country and also, making and building the information in terms of sewerage treatment so that we can produce what is known as re-used water for the purpose of golf courses and lawns and so on and therefore reserve the potable water for human consumption rather than watering lawns and golf courses. So, these are critical initiatives being undertaken and the arrears are being addressed.”

Asked about the amount of arrears, the minister replied: “I cannot recall right off hand but it is substantial with some of them, but the important thing is that they are being addressed and therefore, what we met that is threat to terminate water supply on some of our Family Islands, we’re not there.”

Mr Sears said distributing potable water to islands that do not have it as a key priority for the Davis administration.

“In a number of Family Islands, as I mentioned, in Exuma for example where I was last week and in Cat Island... we don’t have the supply of pipe water to the residents and to the business establishments and residents start to rely on... purchasing water from the water truck,” he said.

“So, under a funding mechanism with the multilateral agencies, the water and sewerage corporation has been given a very strong mandate.

“In those islands, where we don’t have the distribution of potable water to really accelerate that process because it has implications in terms of sanitation and in terms of quality of our water as opposed to relying only on wells or tanks which may be compromised. So, having the direct distribution of water is critical. It’s one of the major public policy objectives of government.”