‘Bi-Water is worse than Batehill deal!’ – Hon Delores Christopher
“The Bi-Water deal in which we find ourselves is a really crooked deal,” she said, asking whether the water supplied to the country should be placed in the hands of one company.
“One company…and if that company decides to hold the country hostage then what? That is the point that I want to put out there to the general public Madam Speaker,” she said during the Second Sitting of the Fourth Session of the Second House of Assembly.
Her reference to Batehill was made to draw a comparison of how the Bi-Water deal could turn out for the Territory. During the late 1960s there were protest actions in the Territory against Batehill’s development of land on Anegada and the manner in which they were leased. Research revealed that of Anegada’s 9,696 acres, 8,196 acres were leased to Batehill for 199 years.
Since the residents of Anegada could not afford to buy into Batehill’s development, they were confined to a reservoir on their own island.
Further, Batehill was exempt from paying any taxes on profit, income and capital for the full 199 years of the lease; was exempt from paying import duty on construction materials for ten years, and on materials for the construction of utilities for the full 199 years and was granted control of the electricity and water supplies.
In return Batehill agreed to build an airstrip capable of handling eight-seater planes, within two years; a hotel within five years; a harbour ‘as soon as it is conveniently practicable'; roads and public facilities (work which was to be partially reimbursed by the government); and overall to spend $1.5m in the first five years and $3m in the first ten, according to an article on the life of Noel Lloyd entitled 'POSITIVE ACTION MOVEMENT: Tortola, Anegada, and the Batehill Agreements'.
Batehill also reclaimed sixty acres of land at Wickham’s Cay on Tortola for a total of $1.4million, or 70 cents per square foot which compared very favourably with the price of land in Road Town at $4 per square foot.
“It is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong and we will continue to say it is wrong. It is not in the best interest of the Virgin Islands,” Hon Christopher said alluding to the Bi-Water agreement.
“We have made great strides to improve the management of our finances. We have made great strides in health services, in education, in infrastructure, great efforts on the sewage and roads and building a tourism product,” she said.
“Madam Speaker I want to urge us as a people to be inspired anew, not to sit back and listen to loose, idle conversations or take in misinformation design to misguide,” she said.
Hon Julian Fraser RA (R3) has at length sought to explain the Bi-Water arrangement and has said on several occasions that the present Government had ample time to prepare for the operations of the company.
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44 Responses to “‘Bi-Water is worse than Batehill deal!’ – Hon Delores Christopher”
is keeping away from that issue?
Doesnt that tell you some thing, or is it the some one has to tell
you everything.
If Biwater was as great as Fraser is claiming, why Andrew hasn't endorsed it? Why isn't it being paraded as one of their accomplishments? Nobody except Fraser talks about Biwater and when he speaks you would swear it's NDP brought them here. It's a damn bad deal which will cause lost of jobs and opportunities for locals. On top of that, they fooled people about being able to invest in Biwater and to date, not a note. Mr White came here, interrupted our morning devotion on ZBVI with pure lies and once he got ink to paper, he was gone like a bat out of hell. Then they set up a plant on desert land, pure bulls..t. If Biwater so good, tell Fraser people defend it. I would love to hear his colleagues on his ticket defend Biwater when the campaign starts, I cannot wait.
When your current and water bill goes up then you will understand what she is saying.
Some people are so doltish they just repeat what they have been told. We do not have a problem with the amout of water needed to supply the BVI, We have a storage problem and infrastructure problem. If you go to all the local water plans at 11:00am I am sure you will find all thier tanks are filled to capacity. When it leaves there and going into the pipes that is where they are finding problems.
The Bate-Hill agreement is to date one of the worst aggreement between the BVI and any other entity; even the original Port Pier Project is not close by a country mile. The Bate-Hill deal included leasing 3/4 of Anegada and Wickham Cay for a wopping 199 years. Moreover, the deal was ripe for importing the appartied system to the BVI.
On the other hand, BI-Water, with its flaws, is a build-operate-transfer (BOT) deal. The company will build, operate and transfer the utility to the BVI after 16 years.