The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) will earn just over $700 000 more per month more from the new Garbage and Sewage Contribution (GSC) to be levied from August 1.
BWA general manager Keithroy Halliday said the financially challenged agency was grateful for the near $8.4 million annual injection, as it will assist with the cost of correcting and repairing of the sewerage systems.
He intimated that the GSC was not an increase in water rates as much of the revenue from it will be going to the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) through the BWA’s bills.
The BWA boss, however, acknowledged utility companies have been challenged to keep the cost of production down by resisting rate hikes, and the BWA was no different. But he quickly stressed that he was not suggesting there should be a rate increase. Rather, he said Barbadians needed to appreciate how the costs to produce and supply water had grown over the years without a comparative rise in rates.
“What the country does not understand is that the price of water has been going up for years. . . . Typically whenever there is a rise in the electricity bills, we absorb it. We are the [Barbados] Light & Power’s largest customer,” said Halliday.
The BWA, like all of the BL&P’s customers, will be hit with an approximate 14 per cent spike in electricity bills this month. This will cost the authority several thousand dollars more than budgeted for.
Halliday said the BWA has been trying to reduce its costs but declined to reveal what the Authority’s operational expenses are, stating he first had to discuss this with his ministry. (SP)
