By Jenique Belgrave
One of this island’s prominent businessmen is questioning the delay in getting a public/private renewable energy project off the ground for the past two years.
Founder and non-executive chairman of Williams Industries, The Most Honourable Ralph Bizzy Williams said his company has been waiting for two years for the Government to approve a proposal to install photovoltaic systems on each of the island’s secondary schools.
“All you have to do is sign off on a proposal that Williams Industries has put to you to put photovoltaics on every secondary school in Barbados and give the Ministry of Education a half a million dollars a year or more…. We have been waiting for approval on this for two years,” he said.
A panellist at Tuesday’s opening of the IRENA – Caribbean for Fostering Energy Transition Investments and Finance Conference at Hilton Barbados, Williams said the issue boils down to a lack of trust.
“The fundamental problem that we have in the Caribbean is that the governments do not trust the private sector. And I can’t understand it because I don’t try to trick anybody and I pay my taxes…. So why is it that the private sector is regarded as a bunch of villains? We are not trying to trick the Ministry of Housing or the Ministry of Education. All we want to do is to convert all of the secondary schools in Barbados into learning centres for the students to observe what is going on and to see the results,” he said.
Williams noted that ten years ago, an application had been submitted to construct a ‘collapsible’ wind turbine, but this was refused.
“I don’t know what is going on, but you all have to make up your mind on whether you want the private sector to do what it can do, the way they could do it,” he said.
He also pointed out that the island now has four wind turbines in operation in St John, which took five years to be given the green light.
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