Bartica, Region Seven while mandating that all locally consumed water must be produced locally in 12 months. The treatment plant, which is funded by the Government of Guyana’s Public Sector Investment Programme (GOG-PSIP), to support the development of housing schemes is set to serve 6000 residents from Four to Seven Miles, and is designed to treat surface water abstracted from a stream at Five Miles. The plant was constructed by Toshiba Water Solutions America Inc. through the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI).

In delivering the feature address, President Ali stated that water is an economic commodity and that there are many studies that point to the global recession of water in decades to come. The Head-of-State said the country now has to work with the integrated water resource management system principles to develop an optimization plan of the total water asset, and how that asset can be deployed to optimize value. “You can’t be such a resource rich country in fresh water and be importing bottled water,” President Ali declared while noting that the Ministry of Public Utilities and Aviation must work with the private sector to ensure that the water consumed locally is produced here and at a reduced cost.

“This ministry must therefore set aside on a target of ensuring that all our water consumed locally is produced locally in the next 12 months. Whether we have to collaborate and we must collaborate with the private sector to ensure that they build up their capacity and capability. Every entity don’t need to have a bottle blower. We can have one entity to produce all of the plastic bottle at standard size across the country, so that we have economies of scale. So, we have to look at all the verticals and to see how we can have economies of scale at every level so that we can bring down the cost of water,” he explained. President Ali said that officials at the GWI have assured him that they can economically bottle water, selling it for $100 or less. “What we have to do is work with the private sector to see how we can actualize this, so that a country that is known as the land of many waters can have the cheapest water available to its people, and that is what we have to do,” he said. (Kaieteur News)