In delivering an update to the nation at a Post-Cabinet Press Briefing today at the Office of the Prime Minister, Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator the Hon. Matthew Samuda said that the Government has activated a national emergency response to address the drought conditions.

“The Government did not allow the drought to creep up on us. The Government through the IWRMC (Integrated Water Resources Management Council) meets and has a Drought Management Committee that meets in and out of the drought season to fine-tune its emergency response when we know this (drought season) comes”, Minister Samuda said.

Minister Samuda reiterated the Prime Minister’s declaration of allocating $150 million to support water trucking and the acquisition and distribution of water tanks to regions facing water shortages caused by ongoing drought conditions. He also outlined some of the additional measures that will be taken this year.

“We will break ground later this year for the Forest Hills line and communities surrounding Red Hills and Cooper’s Hill, which have always had a lack of water, will benefit from the improved water supply. So, we are building in resilience, and we will continue to cut NRW (Non-Revenue Water),” he said.

Minister Samuda said in 2015 there was a need for 55 million gallons of water for the corporate area daily, but with all the development and investments that the Government has in place, there is now a need for 38 million gallons of water daily in the Corporate Area.

For this year, the Government has $5 billion of capital works programmed for potable water, $2.5 billion of infrastructure works for sewage, and $1.6 billion spent through Rural Water.

Minister Samuda highlighted two main projects that are on stream for this year. He said the pilot Non-Revenue water projects in Kingston and St. Andrew and Portmore “gave us the route and transaction design to go to tender for a national NRW programme, which we expect to last some 10 years. Ten years because that is the volume of construction that will be required to change out, in some cases, pipes that are 70 and 80 years old, most cases 40 years. So, we accept that we have a major distribution challenge, but we are facing it, and this partnership is an investment of US$300 million”.

“Another major project is dubbed the Western Water Resilience Strategy. It has several components, and we expect to require some US$209 million to handle developments from Trelawny around to Savanna la Mar in Westmoreland. But two elements this year that we will be moving on are the replacement of the mains that go in St. James and that goes into Negril”, Minister Samuda said.

Minister Samuda said these pipes have passed their useful life and will be replaced at US$70 million.

“These two major pipelines will significantly add to the resilience in the western end of the island that will be aligned from the Martha Brae into St. James specifically Montego Bay and aligned from Ruseas into Negril. These lines will both increase capacity and increase resilience, we expect to execute this over two years because of the volume of construction that is required”, Minister Samuda said.
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