Water Minister Matthew Samuda says full restoration can be expected by Tuesday for the 2,000 National Water Commission (NWC) customers still without service following Friday’s island-wide blackout.

The minister told Observer Online in an interview on Monday that, as of 8pm Sunday, only one system in Manchester and two plants in St Elizabeth remained offline following the power outage.

“Those are the only systems that were still out because of JPS (Jamaica Public Service). And our team and the JPS team continue to work at those two sites. We expect that to be resolved today. So by the time you would go to print tomorrow, there shouldn’t be anyone who is out of water because of the blackout,” said Samuda.

The update comes after a JPS power outage which resulted in roughly 65,000 households or 12 per cent of NWC’s total customer base being without water as at 2pm Saturday.

On Monday, Samuda called the event unfortunate, and emphasised that the government has been making significant strides to increase the island’s resilience to avoid service disturbances during power outages.

“That’s not a new occurrence in any country on earth where you lose power. The water sector, as is usually the primary consumer of that energy, will be hardest hit. There is no difference in this case. It is why the government has invested over a billion dollars [since] Hurricane Beryl, in putting in generators that resolve or that chip in immediately when power goes,” he said.

The minister said that the government will continue to prioritise a shift towards more sustainable power sources, noting that while it will take some time, it was a process which was already underway.

“We will continue to invest until we achieve that full resilience, certainly within 70 per cent of our distribution network. But that will take another couple of years, just based on cash flows. But the policy commitment has already been made. We cannot go ahead of what we’re able to earn,” said Samuda.