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"Business
Week 2002" hosted by The College of
the Bahamas School of Business, continued
on Thursday morning with lectures given on
the topic "Doing New business across
bordersÓ. Shown answering questions
from the audience is His Excellency Wu
Chang Sheng Ambassador of China. On
hisleft is Mr Felix Wilson Hernandez
Consul General of Cuba who also addressed
the audience. (Photo by Craig Lenihan/©Vision
Media)
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BY KEVA LIGHTBOURNE
GUARDIAN STAFF
REPORTER
North Bimini -
Residents of Bimini owe more than $250,000 to the
Water and Sewerage Corporation.
This according to
the Corporation's Acting General Manager, Godfrey
Sherman, as he addressed residents over the weekend,
at a ceremony to commission a new $500,000 reverse
osmosis plant built at no cost to the Government.
RAV Bahamas Limited
and Aqua Design Limited, a subsidiary of Ionics Inc.,
have joint ventured to form Bimini Bay Water Ltd.,
which is capable of providing 125,000 gallons per day
of high quality water.
According to Mr.
Sherman, the Corporation has gotten approval from the
Government to "write off" most of the
$250,000, because residents did not use the water when
their accounts were active. But, he said by the same
token, there are others who did use the water and they
will have to take care of their accounts.
"The
philosophy is this, we would rather get half of
something than all of nothing. So please bring the
half that you owe us," he said.
Mr. Sherman urged
residents to strongly consider applying for
reconnection services to the city supply. With over
400 households on the island, less than 200 are
connected to the water system.
"I know that
is because of things in the past, but I think if this
is going to be done properly and efficiently, we need
to get everybody connected to the city supply,"
Mr. Sherman said. "Most of you, perhaps, do not
want to come back onto the city supply because there
is major arrears in Bimini of bills gone by. This is
not something that we can't avoid, but it is something
that I tell you we are going to address and I think
you will be very pleased about the approach we are
going to take. The only catch to it, is that the
benefits really go to the returning customers. If you
don't want to come back and you want to stay on your
old well, your old bill will stay their with you, if
you want to come back and join onto the new system,
all you really need to do is to come and sit down and
talk with the Water and Sewerage Corporation."
Today, Bimini is
boasting that it has the best water in The Bahamas.
The 15-year
contract signed between Bimini Bay Water Limited and
the Government sealed the deal for Government to
purchase 50,000 gallons of water a day at a cost of
$10 for every 1000 gallon. Bimini residents will only
pay $4 per 1000 gallon for the water.
Bimini uses an
average of 70,000 gallons of water a day.
Bimini was one of
the first islands in The Bahamas to have a
desalination plant back in 1970. However, its
operation was short lived and in 1974 it was shut down
because of maintenance problems.
However this new
plant can easily be expanded to produce more water
when it is needed and that with the expert technical
capabilities of Aqua Design and Ionics Groups,
operational problems should not be a problem.
And in the event
the plant has to be shut down for routine maintenance,
there is adequate storage available to continue
providing normal service for a number of days.
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