IN a bid to speed up connections to sewerage systems in the resort towns of Montego Bay, Negril and Ocho Rios, the National Water Commission has made $500M available to householders to be used as connection fees.

According to president of the National Water Commission, EG Hunter, $220M of this money will take the form of a grant to poorer households while the remaining $280M will be disbursed in the form of three-year loans.

The NWC is securing the funds as a loan from a local bank. The NWC president made the disclosure at the Water Policy consultation meeting with members of the St. James community earlier this week.

“The truth is that the National Water Commission has not succeeded (with the household connections) at the rate that we want to. (And) this is primarily because the cost for household connection is high,” he said.

Only 11 per cent of households outside the Kingston Metropolitan Area and Greater St Catherine are connected to a central sewerage system. However, with the availability of the $500M these numbers are expected to increase. In the meantime, Hunter said there were programmes underway to bring about an improvement in water supply and distribution in St James over the next few years. These programmes, he said, include the expansion of the Great River water treatment system to increase water production from 10 million gallons to 20 million gallons, and the general upgrade of the Montego Bay Distribution system.

“For St James, some 65 per cent of the population have access to piped water and our objective is to increase this to some 85 per cent by the year 2005. In Montego Bay, 95 per cent of the households now have access to piped water and our objective is to take this to 100 per cent by 2005,” he noted. In addition, Hunter said the NWC would carry out a “comprehensive programme” of replacing main pipes, plant rehabilitation, leak repair and pressure zoning. He added that they would also be upgrading the Montego Bay distribution system to include areas like Cedar Hill and Windsor Lodge and said work would also be done in communities like Flankers, Lilliput and Norwood.