The Ministry of Water and Housing says it is finalising arrangements to borrow $477 million from the National Housing Trust (NHT) to finance its drought mitigation initiative.
Water and Housing Minister Dr Horace Chang announced a month ago that the Government had to come up with the $477 million to put water in the houses of thousands of Jamaicans affected by the severe drought.
He told a Gleaner Editors' Forum two weeks ago that the NHT would be lending his ministry the funds to combat the drought.
Chang said yesterday that the process was well advanced.
"I am anticipating that the agreement will be signed by next week," he told The Gleaner yesterday.
Chang said the signing date, initially planned for just over a week ago, failed to materialise.
"We have agreed in principle but we are still sorting out some knotty legal issues," he disclosed.
The water minister said he had expected to ink the deal prior to Christmas, but the legal team had to be working overtime to work out a suitable contract that would be legally acceptable, as the NHT was not empowered to make loans of this nature.
Back to square one
However, he stressed that the failure to sign the agreement on schedule has not thrown out the drought-mitigation programme extensively.
"The rains helped us last week, but by next week we will be back to square one," Chang said. "We should (soon) be able to start using the funds to get the programme going."
He said the ministry has been forced to find the funds to ensure that water is supplied to drought-affected areas across the island, as it is not anticipated that the present condition will not improve in any appreciable manner over the next six months.
The bulk of the $477 million will be channelled into the coffers of the National Water Commission (NWC) to activate the drought-mitigation programme.
The NWC plans to spend $102 million over the next six months on trucking the critical commodity to households.
The budget of the commission over the six-month period includes the $102 million for trucking; $142 million for well development; $17 million for public education and awareness and $18 million for operation and maintenance.
This brings the total amount of money which will be taken out of the $477 million and channelled into the NWC to $279 million.
Another $195.1 million will be turned over to the Ministry of Local Government to assist in the trucking of water islandwide.
Of the $195.1 million, $155.1 million will be spent specifically on trucking with $40 million to be spent on acquiring 20 new trucks.
The remaining $3 million will be spent on the black tank programme, intended to assist householders with storage capacity.
gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com