The tourist island is thirsty and her personal hygiene is questionable. The only Virgin Island with ‘Virgin’ in her name has been begging for, and denied, a commodity that is a basic human right.
Water.
(But she, in the Virgin Islands, is not alone in this experience.)
In 2000, the UN crafted some goals to extend to 2015 which it called the Millennium Development Goals. Water and sanitation were embedded in those goals.
At expiry in 2015, the UN then enacted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for achievement by 2030. Goal #6 is “Clean Water and Sanitation.”
They are both central to health, environmental sustainability and development.
VG is tired of hearing that BVI does not have a water generation problem. She only knows that she cannot get a predictable and consistent supply of water in her pipes, especially after sundown.
She sees that the government budgeted over $27 million for desalinated water in 2023 and wonders.
And it intrigues her that even Honourable Members express surprise when water flows in their pipes. But for that price tag, they should express outrage.
Then, where is our money going and what benefits accrue to the Territory?
Surely, the disappearance of millions of gallons of water per year warrants an aggressive and urgent intervention?
We are in a water crisis and the water woes on Virgin Gorda are hitting a crescendo. The rationing is tiresome.
The primitive approach of filling pans and bottles and bathing from buckets is very third world. And while it matches the BVI experiences of a crumbling infrastructure, it finds no symmetry with one Member’s words that we are in a pre-independence phase.
In fact, it speaks of regression.
And it certainly does not correlate to a 2023 national budget of just shy of US $400 million.
It does not help that hotels and villa owners on VG, combined, are paying out over a million extra dollars per year to ensure, for their guests and families, that water runs in the pipes.
Trucking water to customers on VG has become a lucrative business but where does that water originate?
We are told by the experts that VG has no distribution problems. There are no leaks of consequence in the system.
The problem, they say, is one of production and storage and a growing demand from an increasing customer base.
Can the production versus sales numbers bear this out? Some consumers have been vociferous in their certainty that they cannot.
Regardless, if the problems on VG are this acute in the off season, what should we expect in high season?
There are other UN declarations apart from the right to decolonization but our government is fixated on decolonization.
They do not run around the UN speaking of water and sanitation. That would mean they were representing the views of the people.
And in the House of Assembly, on Tuesday, the VG Representative did not speak of VG water woes at all. But other Representatives were kind enough to do so.
Virgin Gorda deserves a more reliable supply of potable water in her pipes. She bakes the better part of the Territory’s tourism pie and is only asking the treasury that collects her significant revenue to give her the consistent water supply that she needs for business and personal use.
To continue to fail her is to continue to harm the backbone of the economy. But, then again, over the decades, we have become used to spineless living.
Whatever the issues, isn’t there enough money and grey matter in the Territory to fix them?
Must it really boil down to a petition or a news release that begs more questions than it provides answers?
Fridays agree that we do not have a resource problem. We have problems of inaction, indecision and perhaps, even, courage.
Certainly, a fear of shadows:
Our own.
Happy Friday!