Prime Minister: Utility companies doing well

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has refuted Opposition claims that the books of the Central Water and Sewerage Authority, CWSA, are in the red.

At a meeting with the local private sector on Wednesday November 23, called to present his party’s manifesto, the Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Finance revealed that the Authority had made a profit of $454,000 in the financial year ending June 2005. {{more}}This profit, he said, is more than that made in both 2003 and 2004. He also announced that the statutory corporation’s assets had increased from 75 million in 2004 to 81 million in 2005, and that utility company’s connections increased from 27,000 to 28,000 during the same time period.

Responding to concerns raised at the meeting about energy costs here, Chief Executive Officer of St. Vincent Electricity Services Ltd., VINLEC, Thornley Myers said that the utility company’s audited statements show that during 2004, their hydro electric plants had achieved 27 million megawatt hours of energy, which he said was a record.

He also mentioned that last year, the company had the highest level of fuel efficiency ever achieved in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Myers assured the business people present that the utility company was doing whatever could be done to improve efficiency as the company understood the impact this has on production costs.

According to Myers, power losses too, were down. Last year, the company had power losses of 8.9%, which he said compares favourably with any electricity company in the region.