News

The Caribbean Development Bank has approved funding for the Grand Fond Water system

Hon. Reginald Austrie, Minister for Water Resource Management confirmed this on Monday during an interview with GIS news.

He says, “The people of Grand Fond have been [pleading] for a new water system for a while now and the CDB has approved the contractor for that project under the BNTF program. We expect very shortly that the contract will be signed and work will begin on this new facility. This will bring much relief to the people of Grand Fond. It is Government’s stated policy and even [though] we know that the financial situation is in fact tight, the Government through the Ministry of Finance and the Minister for Finance, Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit has made the resources available. We see water as an essential commodity that nobody can live without.  Water is Life and so we are ensuring that we want to keep all our people healthy and strong by ensuring that we make this social investment.”

Parliamentary Representative for the Grand Fond Constituency, Hon. Ivor Stephenson is looking forward to the commencement of the project.

“For many years now the people of Grand Fond have been experiencing some serious shortages of water within the community.  With the approved funds, the people of Grand Fond especially those that reside in upper Grand Fond will now be able to live much more comfortably and enjoy the quality of water that they expect to enjoy.  I must say here that the Caribbean Development Bank has not only approved funds for the community of Grand Fond through the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) but we have seen where other communities have benefitted from under CDB-BNTF projects.  In Bagatelle, in the Kat-Bwa area, a project is nearing completion; we have Petite Savanne which saw the commissioning of a water system last year, and in Shawford and Monkey Hill, Marigot all these are CDB-BNTF funded projects.  So we can see that the CDB and the Government of Dominica continue to collaborate to ensure that we can improve the quality of the lives of people especially in the areas where [people] are benefiting from CDB-BNTF projects.”