APUA managers are scapegoats for Administration’s failure to deliver on water promises, says Tabor

The United Progressive Party (UPP) is condemning the most recent
attacks on employees of the Antigua Public Utilities Authority
(APUA), particularly those at the management level.
 
On the weekend Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that APUA’s
Water Business Unit was the biggest threat to his government, and
he called on General Manager Esworth Martin to leave the job.
 
However, Damani Tabor says the Browne Administration is merely
creating scapegoats to cover its incompetence and its failure to
improve the water situation.
 
But in doing so, he says, Browne’s accusations are serving only to
demoralize the staff of the utilities company.
 
Meanwhile, the UPP is encouraging residents to demand public
consultations on the water crisis – a proposal that has been
advanced by Leader of the Opposition Jamale Pringle.
 
Pringle has suggested that the Lower House appoint a Select
Committee – on which members of the Government and the Opposition would sit
– and convene public discussions with officials from APUA.

Out of this collaboration, members would then propose solutions to
the challenges of delivering pipe-borne water regularly.
 
Now, Tabor says, the UPP is at a loss to understand how the
Administration could have decided to outsource certain water
functions to a private company.

After all, it notes, the Government had promised to install additional
Reverse Osmosis plants to meet the shortfall in production and
distribution.

Such a decision requires public consultation, he insists, so that
questions can be put to the APUA officials and viable solutions be
brought forward to end the water crisis.

In the meantime, Tabor says the UPP does not support the
privatization of APUA water under circumstances where there is no
transparency or justification for the move.