Montserrat’s electricity and water provider has suffered from financial and infrastructure problems for a very long time, according to Deputy Premier Samuel Joseph.
In a recent live broadcast speech, he described Montserrat Utilities Limited (MUL) as a “hot potato” issue which has been passed from one administration to the next.
Joseph, who is Minister of Communication, Works, Labour and Energy, was speaking on the topic of ‘Utility’ during an episode of ‘From the Minister’s Chair’ on Monday, 5 February.
He said MUL – a private company owned by the Government of Montserrat – has made very little profit in ten years and even got to a point where it had nearly exhausted its reserves.
“I’m saying that to show that there’s been an ongoing problem with the company that has been shuffled from year to year,” the deputy premier said.
“The tough decisions that were needed to rectify it haven’t been made for various reasons that I’m not discussing here… but they haven’t been made.”
Joseph said he had heard a lot of rhetoric about how MUL could be fixed, and stressed that rhetoric is not the answer, but active work within the ministry.
Numerous problems
The minister explained that when he began his term there were several issues that needed immediate action.
Equipment and generators in the new power station were not “communicating” with one another due to software problems, he said.
Another concern was that there were not enough generators and the existing ones were “old and aging and needed to be rectified”.
He said it was staff at his ministry that have been able to obtain the money and work on addressing these issues in a practical way.
On 16 January a newly acquired medium-speed generator arrived at the MUL power plant and is expected to be operational by the end of February, according to a social media statement.
In December last year, in light of the ongoing financial difficulties, the government asked the MUL board to resign immediately.
The new board now includes 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.
Around the same time, Cabinet agreed to further government intervention, including the funding of an additional engineer for the MUL.
MUL formed through the merger of the electricity (Monlec) and water (MWA) utility companies.
