Funding protection coming for BWA

A lack of funding has dried up Government’s water mains replacement project.

But Prime Minister Mia Mottley said her administration would be putting laws in place to protect future funding.

She explained that the hope was to have this funding come from the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) providing 20 per cent of the island’s 100 per cent renewable energy targets and selling the energy to the national grid.

“The Minister [of Energy and Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams] is going to be bringing that legislation to Parliament shortly to ensure that we have Constitutional protection for the fund that is to guarantee the capital expenditure of the water authority, so that the efforts in the last decade to leave the water authority empty for money and not just empty of water, would not be repeated,” she said to applause.

In May this year the country launched the Water Sector Resilience Nexus for Sustainability in Barbados (WSRNS-Barbados) project, a component of which was to replace mains and protect the integrity of water supply, especially in the north of the island.

This project, which had several other components and was to span just over five years initially, was being funded by the Green Climate Fund to the tune of US$27.6 million in grants, US$17.6 million from Government, and an additional US$17.6 million that was received in in-kind contributions.

This follows on from a mains replacement programme, which started back in 2015 with US$50 million funding from the Inter-American Development Bank, which was intended to replace some 50 kilometres of water mains across several parishes.

However, with funding drying up and the mains replacement under the WSRN S-Barbados project still to be completed, the Prime Minister said the decision was taken to have the BWA raise funding by selling electricity to the national grid after investing in renewable energy systems.

Mottley pointed out that with the BWA being the single largest customer of the Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) it was agreed that the BWA on its own, could have responsibility for the generation of 20 per cent of the country’s renewable energy targets.

“The Barbados Water Authority therefore will undertake those investments either by themselves or as joint venture partners with light and power or whosoever else in the country it is willing to have joint venture partnerships with,” said Mottley.

“But what we need is the revenue growth from that 20 per cent of renewable energy to secure the country’s capital expenditure on water so that we are not left out to sea with respect to ordinary citizens’ rights to have water in this country. It is a travesty,” she said.

Mottley said the overall plan was to have Barbados’ entire infrastructure upgraded including putting overhead cables and electrical infrastructure underground, making the country more resilient and so that hard-to-reach communities can have access to the utilities.

“We have to do all of this while replacing our entire distribution for water, for which we have only completed 1.5 per cent of the mains replacement,” Mottley told a packed Barbados Sustainable Energy Conference 2019 at the Hilton Resort on Wednesday.

Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley said he was eager to hear the details relating to the “constitutional protection” that would be put in place.

“Where she is going with this matter of ensuring the funding to the water authority is protected and not frittered away, I wait to hear more on that,” he said.

However, Atherley said residents wanted to see lower rates for electricity, pointing out that while the country had one of the lowest rates for water in the region, it had one of the highest for electricity.