Land tenure ‘no longer determines water connection’

Squatters are to be included in a new policy that will no longer require a land owner’s permission to gain a water connecton, Minister of Energy and Water Resource Management Wilfred Abrahams has revealed.

“We implemented a policy where persons who do not hold title to land can still get a water supply connected for their use,” he told the House of Assembly as lawmakers took up the 2020-2021 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure.

Abrahams said the new policy was primarily motivated by the international convention that all humans must be afforded the basic right to access clean drinking water, especially in times of natural disasters or a disease outbreak.

In coming up with the policy, Abrahams said his Government had to balance the rights of all Barbadians to access potable water with the legal requirements that an existing land owner was responsible for paying the water bill which would have been left in arrears by a previous owner.

He said: “The ministry and the Government thought it appropriate that we relax the legal implications of the water bill on the land to allow people access to water. It makes sense.

“Deprivation of water is not only depriving you of water, it brings into play public health concerns.

“What happens in the event of an outbreak, if there is a fire; all those things have to come into play.

Abrahams further defended the Government’s new policy in response to a query by Member of Parliament for St George North Gline Clarke as to whether the Mottley administration was introducing squatters’ rights with respect to water access.

While dismissing any notion that such was the intent, the Minister however noted that all Barbadians including squatters will have the right to access clean drinking water.

He said the only exception would be in an area where any type of construction is prohibited such as a zone one.

The Minister, himself an attorney-at-law, declared: “It is more than that. We have a lot of situations in Barbados where somebody’s grandmother was the owner of the land… and the grandmother dies and the estate has not been settled.

“Nobody has been appointed an executor or an administrator; the family wants to use the land, but can’t get a water connection because there is nobody to sign on behalf of the diseased; and the longer it goes, it gets more difficult to resolve it; because you have to sort out all the estate’s high priorities in order to sort out the one at the bottom.”

He contended that the practice was causing too much difficulty and affecting a lot of people. He said he was getting complaints every day from fellow MPs.

Abrahams said water resources ministry collaborated with the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) to try to find a logistical solution.

“The solution is, if you want to have a water connection on your land, you have to pay the deposit for the connection; but you also have to effectively pay a security deposit. So you have to pay in advance for a certain amount of prospective water consumption. You are not going to be allowed to exceed that deposit,” he explained.

He warned that if the deposit is exceeded, then it is attached to the land.

Abrahams said the BWA must then be vigilant to ensure people do not accumulate arrears over and above the deposit sum.

He added: “The other thing the Water Authority have to do in the event… it is a statutory corporation; we are not as efficient as we would like to be in certain areas and we are working on them… but if from the Water Authority’s side, they fail to catch it before it exceeds the deposit, then the Water Authority is going to indemnify the owner of the land, the actual title holder against those arrears.

“It is a serious balancing act, for anybody who wants to avail themselves of this water service.

“You just have to go to the Water Authority, make the application…they will come and inspect; but there is one caveat.

“It does not apply to prohibited development areas.  If you are in a zone one area… there is more of a reason, other than ownership of the land, not the liability with respect to the land that is in play.

“So public health concerns outweigh everything else.”

He informed the Lower Chamber that this new policy had been kept quiet for “sensitivity reasons.”

The Minister explained that there are people in Barbados who have water challenges because of their geographical location, singling out the rural parish of St Joseph which experiences chronic water outages or shortages.

At this point, he told the MP for that constituency Attorney General Dale Marshall, that he was sorry for the suffering the residents have been enduring because of the dry taps.

Abrahams declared: “I wish on behalf of the Water Authority and all concerned, to actually apologize to the Minister, the MP for St Joseph who has gotten it rough.

“He has shared every single day without fail…he sends all the complaints of his constituents to me; so I do not envy him having to apologize on my behalf.”

In assuring the people of St Joseph that the BWA and his ministry are actively working on the problems, the Minister for water said he had to balance the residents’ concerns with a change to the law to add more people to the water service.

He said: “So we kept that one (new policy) low-keyed, so as not to rub it in the faces of those who are suffering current water outages and water shortages.

“But it is important that people actually know it now, because it is not go enough that people still continue to be deprived of water or access to water for all of the reasons I outlined, when there is now a solution to allow you to connect to the Water Authority where you didn’t have it before.”

But Chairman of Committees Dr Sonia Browne still asked the Minister for greater clarity as to whether the new policy included squatters.

He replied: “We make no distinction.

“The only distinction between a land owner and somebody who cannot prove title or has the consent of the land owner, is that you have to pay a deposit against your water bill.

“That is the only distinguishing characteristic.

“We are not asking if you are a squatter or can you provide a title deed or consent from the owner. No. You need to pay this and this; if you are not in a prohibited area, we will connect you.”

Abrahams agreed with Dr Browne that getting a squatter off one’s land was easier said than done.

But he sought to make it clear that his Government could not “in all good conscience” continue to deprive a person access to drinking water after they had been occupying someone else’s land for more than ten years.

Abrahams said: “ If we don’t do it and we have an outbreak in Barbados, Father forbid, then we have serious issues.

“To be honest, when we were battling the sewage issues and we were hoping to get through and get the sewage off the street and to get it cleaned up and doing the disinfection, we were very, very worried of the possibility of an outbreak of a sewage-borne [illness].”

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb