MANDEVILLE, Manchester – State minister in the Ministry of Water, Housing, Transport and Works, Dr Fenton Ferguson, said Friday that the country was moving towards liberalising its water supply system.

Ferguson said while this did not mean the introduction of private suppliers, the need exists for alternative approaches to water supply and ideas from private companies were welcome.

“We have projects that speak to the role of communities in water supply,” he said, reiterating the links between some communities and the benevolent societies.

“It is going to have to be something that we think through as we go along,” the junior minister said at the end of a tour of National Water Commission sites in this parish.

Among the stops was the construction site of the $160-million Spalding/Christiana Water Supply System. The project is funded by a European Union grant.

The system, explained chief engineer Peter McIntosh, is a water treatment plant through which about 750,000 gallons of water will be taken daily from Two Meetings River and pumped out for domestic use. The project is expected to benefit up to 12,000 people in communities that include Chudleigh, Halifax, Norton Town, lower Burrow Bridge and Allston.

McIntosh said one of the major challenges has been getting people to register for metered water supply.

“Not many people have been taking up the offer now,” he said, “but I suppose when it becomes a reality to everybody, they’ll (NWC) have a bigger influx”.

Member of parliament for Northeast Manchester, Audley Shaw, who was also present at the site, said he was pleased with the pace at which the work was progressing.

Shaw echoed McIntosh’s and Ferguson’s projection that the plant should be operational by December this year.

Shaw’s main concern, however, was two incomplete projects in the Craighead, Manchester area. The Jamaica Social Investment Fund, he said, spearheaded the installation of two pumps in springs in Mother Fleur and Morgan’s Run a few years ago. But water is not being distributed to the communities, for reasons that Shaw said were unclear to him.

Meanwhile, other projects in the parish that Ferguson said the ministry would now be paying attention to were the erection of a 100,000-gallon tank at Settlement and a $150-million upgrade of the greater Mandeville water supply. This upgrade will involve the acquisition of a well in Goshen, St Elizabeth to provide an additional source of water for Mandeville.

Ferguson said he will host a two-day retreat next month with members of the public and private sectors and water supply interests to discuss the matters arising from this and similar tours across the island.

He said he hopes the retreat will help to address one major

question: “How are we going to focus now on those areas that are definitely without water?”