Gov’t to spend additional $1B on water projects to combat drought – PM
Government will be allocating an additional $1 billion in the next budget to support the development of small community/municipal-based water projects.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness made the announcement on Tuesday in a ministerial statement in the House of Representatives where he addressed the worsening meteorological drought facing the country.
He explained that the money will be spent to rehabilitate community tanks, construct catchment areas and install small pumps, mostly in rural areas.
“The work for these small projects will begin now,” he said.
Noting that it was incumbent on the authorities to “catch up” with the water supply situation, Holness reminded that $7 billion in investment in the country’s water network is slated for the current fiscal year.
He also noted that the impact of the drought in the Corporate Area was not as bad as before despite it being one of the worst ever, because of the more than $3 billion spent to install a pipeline from Ferry, St Catherine to Eastern Kingston and Port Royal.
The prime minister also pleaded with all Jamaicans to conserve water.
“All Jamaicans should now be aware that the climate is indeed changing and that our weather patterns are shifting. We can expect longer periods of intense drought and indeed periods of intense rainfall,” he said.
He lamented that recent rainfall has been insufficient to break the drought in parts of the country and said the extended drought is severely affecting the country’s water storage systems and distribution facilities.
“With this particular drought, we’re seeing significant impacts on our water storage and distribution systems. In particular, we’re seeing the effects on some of our rivers and especially on some of our ground water facilities”.
Holness said of particular concern is the fact that the rivers in the east of the country have been noticeably low in terms of their normal flows.
He said despite the efforts of the state-run National Water Commission to implement various operating strategies to minimise the negative effects of the reduction in rainfall, some customers are already experiencing low water pressure or interruptions in their piped water supply.
Among the impacted systems are the Hermitage Dam and Mona Reservoir which are both at approximately 40 per cent of their capacity.
The prime minister said St James is particularly affected as the dry spell has been compounded by significant mechanical failure in recent weeks, made worse by breaks along the main supply lines.
“The government is conscious of the issues facing St James and indeed the entire North Coast,” he stated while pointing out that major hotel and other developments were taking place in this part of the country, particularly in St James, Trelawny and into Hanover where several thousand hotel rooms are slated to come on stream in the next five years.