MARTHA BRAE, Trelawny – Government has announced plans to pump more than US$200 million into projects to upgrade water supply systems across four western parishes over the next four years. The move is expected to help unclog economic opportunities within the region.

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator Matthew Samuda made the disclosure during last week Thursday’s commissioning of the upgraded Martha Brae Intake by the National Water Commission (NWC). He said that project, which had a price tag of $100 million, was included in the wider US$200-million initiative that will span “the edge of Trelawny to the eastern edge of Westmoreland”.

“We are going to ensure that the commercial opportunities that exist for the people of Trelawny, for the people of St James, for the people of Hanover, for the people of Westmoreland, can be leveraged. We can’t build the houses that we see coming without the water. We can’t build the hotels that we know want to come, the 20,000 rooms that want to come — everybody wants to come to Jamaica — without the water,” Samuda said.

“So we are going to make the investment at an unprecedented level in water resilience for the people of Trelawny, the people of St James, the people of Hanover, the people of Westmoreland,” the minister added.

He pointed out that the $100 million to undertake the Martha Brae project “didn’t come from the sky” but from the NWC which has moved from losses of $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion of profit in the last fiscal year.

“It didn’t come from the Consolidated Fund. It came because the NWC is being well run under this Government and we’re not going to be shy about that. The NWC in 2012 was listed by the IMF as a fiscal risk to this country — meaning it was a risk to me, it was a risk to you, it was a risk to every single Jamaican,” Samuda said.

He blamed previous administrations for failing to invest in the utility company to make it become viable.

“It was a liability. Not because the hard-working men and women of NWC weren’t doing the job. [It was a liability] because governments had failed to set NWC right. They had failed to kick-start it with the investment, they had failed to get out of the way of the hard-working men and women who lead the NWC and allow them to do their work appropriately,” he argued.

He added: “We have to continue to run the NWC well, so that the fiscal space is created to invest in your water supply at home.”

The scope of the NWC’s $100-million Martha Brae Intake project included re-engineering of the previous uptake structure and river training work which will result in the harnessing of an additional three to four million gallons of water daily, increasing overall production volumes at the Martha Brae Treatment plant from eight million gallons per day to 11 million per day.

Member of Parliament for Trelawny Northern, Tova Hamilton welcomed the additional capacity that is expected to boost the reliability of the water supply not only to Trelawny but also to sections of St James.

“As we inaugurate this water project let us not forget those communities within Trelawny Northern that still lack water. Let us be inspired by this occasion to redouble our efforts to provide universal access to [those] communities … We must continue to work towards a society where no one is denied this basic human right,” Hamilton said.