Premier Reuben Meade has promised to fix Montserrat’s power problems, but said the government is very new and needs some time.
“You cannot just wave a magic wand and solve a 10-year-old problem. Give us time. We said we’re going to fix it – we will fix it,” he assured.
Speaking during an interview on ZJB Radio on 28 November, Meade reminded listeners that the government is just weeks old, having been elected at the end of October.
However, he stated that efforts are already underway to repair the energy system, which has been plagued by persistent faults over the years, causing blackouts across the island.
“We are bringing in technical experts from the UK, who will be looking at the power system,” he said.
“And one of the things which I don’t think anybody has even looked at yet is – what are the line losses, the distribution losses going through these old lines which we have?
“Do we need to replace the lines? What upgrade do we need to do, other than fixing the generating plant?”
He said the technical experts will be expected to firstly “fix the problem with the engines” and also to provide updated training to local technicians.
“So these are things that are in train, but we can’t just wave a magic wand and it happens. So all we’re saying is bear with us,” the premier said.
“We are doing what we need to do, and we will always keep the public informed as we proceed to do what we have promised to deliver.”
A history of outages
Montserrat Utilities Limited (MUL), the island’s only power provider, reported several faults over the past year which caused outages.
They have included an earthing fault on the Little Bay feeder, as well as issues with generation equipment sensors and water-cooling systems.
In June former energy minister Samuel Joseph said Montserrat’s intermittent power outages “negatively” affected the island’s digital nomad programme.
In December 2023, due to ongoing financial difficulties, the former government asked the MUL board to resign.
The new board included the government’s financial secretary, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Communication, Works, Labour and Energy, and MUL’s chief engineer.
“The new board will be expected to restructure the company and explore ways of addressing the financial problems,” a government press release said at the time.
Around the same time, Cabinet agreed to further government intervention, including funding an additional engineer for the MUL.
