The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is providing more than EC$200 million (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) in grant and loan funding to Dominica for major infrastructural work on the island.
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said Dominica will receive EC$132.6 million including a grant of US$32.9 million from Britain for the rehabilitation of the Loubiere to Grand Bay Road network.
“It is a major investment and certainly it is topping the EC$127 million that we are currently spending on the east of Dominica with loan funds from the World Bank.”
He said under the project, Dominica also contracted a US$5.5 million loan from the CDB because there are certain components of the design that had to be left out.
“So, we had to contract the loan from the CDB, and we are very grateful to the CDB for making those funds available in a very quick fashion,” he said, adding that the first phase of the project will include the construction of five bridges.
He said the procurement process is underway and it is hoped construction begins by mid-year.
Regarding the other major project, Skerrit said it also involves a grant of US$30.3 million from the United Kingdom government with the government and the Dominica Water and Sewerage Company Limited (DOWASCO) providing EC$9.2 million to finance major water projects in the country.
He said a total of EC$106.7 million will be spent on the water project, adding that the funds were made available to Dominica following the passage of Hurricane Maria in 2017 “and we recognize as a government that our water system was severely exposed to elements and the question is how do we go about building greater resilience in our water system in the event of a disaster”.
He said when the British offered assistance, the government felt it was not in the interest of Dominica to spend the funds across the island but to focus on the water sector.
He said all designs for the water strategy development project are complete and the tender documents submitted to the CDB with the hope that the contracts can be awarded by August.
Prime Minister Skerrit told a news conference Tuesday following talks with CDB president Dr. Gene Leon on his first official visit to the island, that he was “very much fortified by the discussions and the vision which the new president has for the bank.
The St. Lucia-born Leon, the sixth president of the region’s premier financial institution, told reporters he hoped that at the end of his five-year term his commitment to regional development would be better articulated.
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