BWA Boost

The Barbados Water Authority will be getting a much needed cash injection later this year to the tune of a US$35 million loan from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

The loan was approved in mid-December 2015, and according to the CDB’s Projects Department’s Director Daniel Best, would see its first disbursement before the end of June.

Aimed at improving the overall supply infrastructure, the projects aim at implementing measures to reduce non-revenue water, replace and refurbish reservoirs and improve the aging infrastructure of the authority.

During the question-and-answer segment of the CDB’s annual press conference on Friday at its Wildey headquarters, Best outlined that the CDB had been in recent talks with the new management of the state-owned water corporation to determine how the implementation of the loan can be advanced.

“The procurement of engineering services under that initiative has commenced and the consultants should be engaged very early in the second quarter of this year and we anticipate that civil works under this initiative will commence later this year,” he added.

In addition, he said that the US$7.5 million also approved in 2015 to shore up the Student Revolving Loan Fund and improve its sustainability.
“We have been in discussions with the Government of Barbados and we anticipate a disbursement on the Student Revolving Loan Fund should occur very early in the second quarter. So the dialogue between the CDB and the various agencies in which we operate has been ongoing,” Best assured. (JMB)