Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he is concerned that four years after granting a license to a company to export Dominica’s water, not one bottle of water has been exported out of the island.
In 2009, the Dominica government granted a license to United States-based Company Sisserou Water Inc, to export water over a 10 year period.
“We granted them a license for a particular river source in the Londonderry area. There we provide them with a wide range of concessions and the idea was that they would have extracted water from that river source. Now I have heard that they have moved away from that and they are now talking to DOAWSCO to see if they can get water from the existing government owned distribution point at the ports. This is a matter that has not been brought to my attention as the prime minister because that has to be approved by me,” he said.
He said a shareholders meeting will be held with DOWASCO on Wednesday to discuss the matter.
“The facility at DOWASCO is a very expensive one and we are spending in excess of 4 million dollars to build this tank at Morne Bruce to provide increased storage capacity for the people of Roseau and also for the cruise ships. We also spent close to three million dollars to put a filtration system at Antrim. We are talking about 7 million dollars just to improve the quality of water for residents of Roseau. So anyone who wants to take advantage of that source would need to provide us with a proper proposal. They also need to take into consideration whether it would make economic sense and what is in it for DOWASCO,” he added.
He says Dominicans have failed to take advantage of its water resources which is to the benefit of the citizens.
