Millions of $$$ leaking through the pipes – Vanterpool
“It’s time to bring the Water and Sewerage Department into real focus, you cannot have a deficit of 12 or 13 million dollars where it can be much better than that, there is somewhere in the Water and Sewerage Department where some five to seven million dollars is slipping out somewhere,” charged the Minister for Communications and Works Hon. Mark Vanterpool during today's, March 23, 2012 Budget Address that is currently underway in the House of Assembly.
Minister Vanterpool said while there has been focus on the water contracts, “the whole water and sewerage department is a problem”. He stated that the department spent some 16 million and only collected about three million.
According to Vanterpool, the problem at WSD might not be with a specific person or any particular government of past or present.
“We cannot operate a department which is supposed to collect a certain amount of revenue on an annual basis and they are not collecting it and we sit by and every year goes by we are focusing on this contract over here, we are focusing on that contract over there and in the meantime, the baby is drowning in the water,” the outspoken government minister said.
Minister Vanterpool said while Government will be dealing with the contracts, it has to “zero in and focus” on the WSD and Government will not be waiting on any foreign company to focus on the issues at the WSD. He said he has been speaking to a number of accounting and technical people, and it was recognized it is the issue of pipes and leaking.
“… but we are waiting on Biwater to solve that when we can solve that ourselves. The money is leaking out in the pipes and we are waiting on somebody to come do it for us. Madam Speaker that is not going to happen, we are going to take action now and solve that problem.”
He said he doesn’t know if the solution to dealing with the WSD would be to have it as a statutory body or merge it with the BVI Electricity Corporation. He also said it could be for the WSD to be put under more “focus management” into its own statutory position where a group of “smart people and intelligent people” can have the time to focus on the department and its operations.
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