The United Progressive Party says PM Gaston Browne promised that the water situation would be fixed in 14 days. It’s been 2749 days | 392 weeks | 7 years, 6 months. The people deserve better!!!
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
Listen I am 45 and there are people much older than I am.
In all my life THERE HAS NEVER EVER BEEN CONSISTENT WATER SUPPLY.
ALP failed
UPP failed
ABLP failed
APUA failed
You can’t point out someone’s failure and not point out your own while you were in power.
Gimme a damn break please!
I agree they all failed to provide constant running water to the people. We are in the twenty-first century and we should not be experiencing this water situation this bad with all the technology out there like the Reverse Osmosis Desalination facility. From what I understand we have about six (6) plants run and owned by the government. Because of the lack of proper maintenance and spare parts on hand, a lot of them are not working. Water storage capacity is another problem when these plants produce water. The US Government has left behind a few large water storage thanks in Coolidge on both former military Bases and again because of lack of proper maintenance these storage tanks are ruined. Even the reservoir water catchment, near the LIAT Hanger, was left behind by the US Government in top-notch shape and left for ruin by the Antigua government. That water catchment I was told holds over 2 million gallons of water.
Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock!
“The Afrocentric method considers that no phenomena can be apprehended adequately without locating it first. A phenom must be studied and analyzed in relationship to psychological time and space. It must always be located. This is the only way to investigate the complex interrelationships of science and art, design and execution, creation and maintenance, generation and tradition, and other areas bypassed by theory.” – Dr. Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity, The Theory of Social Change!
Full disclosure, the findings, comments and suggestions which will be proffered are not based on any research engaged to understand the reason for the “Water Woes” with which the People of African Descent have lived since their introduction to Antigua and Barbuda, or, the Sisyphean struggles of Colonial and Planter Governments and consecutive ALP, PLM, ABLP and UPP Governments to remedy and satisfy the ever-increasing demand of the growing population and the resultant economy! This mere voice in the wilderness has from preschool education sought learning opportunities to better understand the various disciplines of the basic components of a Water Supply System!
Friends, CountryWomen, Rastas, as Asante says, the phenom must be located in Time and Space! Some speak of Droughts! Some shout Climate Change! “Both Antigua and Barbuda are situated between Latitudes 17” and 18” north and directly in the path of the North-East Trade Winds, but because of their low elevations have always suffered from insufficient rainfall. Prolonged droughts, high evaporation, the absence of rivers and streams, and the presence of only one or two permanent springs in Antigua and, none at all in Barbuda have all combined to give each island a constant shortage of fresh water: a factor which played a major part in the settlement of both.” Brian Dyde, A History of Antigua!
Lest We Remember! The Caribbean accounts for SEVEN of the world’s top 16 of the 36 most water-stressed countries in the World! Antigua and Barbuda is one of the SEVEN in that top 16 Grouping! At a tender age between 3 and 4 which was the age at which teachable moments began in Primary School, Antigua’s water woes were vividly brough home! A friendly neighbour and bus driver, “Lenny” would take this curious and inquisitive lad on his bus with a body and seats made of wood filled with the villagers from All Saints, Freemans Village and Sea View Farm, courtesy of the Late Luther George, to Body Ponds and Walling’s to collect and return water to their homes! The utensils of buckets, pails, oil cans, Yabba’s, clay pots, basins etc., when filled with their precious and life saving water from the wells and reservoirs, were covered with pond leaves to lessen the spillage as the bus weaved and rocked as it traveled over poorly built and badly maintained roadways some of which were called “tracks”! That was the colonial environment of the late forties early fifties as the regular droughts made life more miserable for the People of African descent! Just as with our Ancestors, enslaved Africans, as with us today, unsatisfied demand and poor supply of water caused by geography, and the resultant droughts without a modern sustainable, efficient water supply chain: harvesting, processing, storage and distribution; have been our lot since 1632!
“In order to terminate this neurotic situation, in which I am compelled to choose an unhealthy, conflictual solution, fed on fantasies, hostile, inhuman in short, I have only one solution: to rise above this absurd drama that others have staged around me, to reject the two terms that are equally unacceptable, and through one human being, to reach out for the universal. When (People of African Descent) dive–in other words, goes under–something remarkable occurs.” – Dr. Frantz Fanon!
💯 facts to bad the blue blind idiots won’t admit this. They seem to think Antigua only came into existence after 2014!
APUA has got to do better!!! The entire nation needs to protest the terrible water “service”
Is that Wilmoth Daniel CAN’T PARK in the background? 🤔
Will he use it to park his STRIPPER POLE BUS there??
Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock!
“The value of etymology, that is, the origin of terms and words is in the proper identification and location of concepts. The Afrocentrist seeks to demonstrate clarity by exposing dislocations, disorientations and decenteredness. One of the simplest ways of accessing textural clarity is through etymology.” – Dr. Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity, The Theory of Social Change!
Most school children on Antigua and Barbuda have been taught that there are four main stages in the water cycle. They are evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection! The young ones look to their elders especially the intelligentsia, the bureaucrats, the technicians, the engineers and above all their government, specifically the GoAB administration of the day to make real the interrelationship and connect the science of design, creation, generation and maintenance, not only to a sustainable supply: evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection but also to a growing demand satisfied by harvesting, processing, storage and distribution of potable water!
Demand on the Rock is a very tricky issue given the “growing population and the resultant economy!” Easily identified is the demand side of the equation: the people, agriculture and animal husbandry, fire services, sanitation, disaster emergencies, Institutional, Industrial and the Hospitality, Yachting and Cruise Tourism Sector! School children should challenge any of the intelligentsia, the bureaucrats, the technicians, the engineers and smooth-talking politicos to give them the estimated design and or the actual daily demand per person figures for each of the categories! How many, People of African Descent resident on the drought-stricken ad scarce water supply Rock, know roughly their true daily water usage unfettered by the every constant “water stoppage”! Yet the Politicos spout the beauty of more and new Desalinization Plants constructed on lands adjacent to beaches with their intakes and outflow points within a short distance from the low water mark!
Some Inconvenient Truths:
Abandon Potsworks Dam as a source of potable water! This dam was conceived in the late sixties as a result of flooding from rains and not any detailed engineering and hydrological studies. Today The dam loses over 1 million gallons of water daily to evaporation. For the historical referent point in time and Space: The reservoir is named after an 18th century pottery works at the Garden estate, which was owned by the Codrington family from the early 18th to the end of the 20th century. A part of the dam is built over the site of the works and a 19th century bridge! And some talk of Emancipate yourself from Mental Slavery! Oh Gad!
The Aquifers in the Shekerly Mountains of Antigua have been exhausted and have not been able to be replenished from the rainfall of the last fifty years! Additionally, the water has become brackish from infiltration of sea/salt water! Remove them from the Supply equation!
Wallings is now dry and a Tourist attraction of Colonial Engineering!
“The cognitive and structural aspects of a paradigm are incomplete without the FUNCTIONAL aspect. There is something more than KNOWING in the Afrocentric sense; there is also DOING. Afrocentricity holds that all definitions are AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.” – Dr. Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity, The Theory of Social Change!
I have to be throwing up water like back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Aren’t we in the twenty-first century or not? With all the Reverse Osmosis Desalination plants in Antigua and Barbuda, we are still throwing up water to bath. For some of our salary ($461.35 weekly), we can’t even afford to buy water to fill our, tanks, or drums. Father God, we thank You for Your mercy upon us today for the shower of rain You have blessed us with. What did this government do with all the CIP money and other revenues collected because I haven’t seen any improvement in the country’s infrastructures? This government collected more revenues than any other government and still majority of us are living like swine at the trough. Do you know that people in Antigua and Barbuda are still earning less than $300 weekly in this high cost of the living country? They’re some people in Antigua right with higher education (Associate and Bachelor Degrees) who are earning less than $500 weekly?
Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock!
“Fighting for the freedom of one’s people is not the only necessity. As long as the fight goes on you must enlighten not only the people but also, and above all, yourself on the full measure of man. You must retrace the paths of history, the history of man damned by other men, and initiate, bring about, the encounter between your own people and others.” ― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
Skyewill from Johnson Village wants water to wash his “dutty foot!”
“She’s my inspiration, My part-time occupation, The catalystic intimidation of my quest for education No other can take her place then, No assimilation, So save your false accusations,
I accept no imitations, That’s the situation So without further hesitation, Let me continue my demonstration for the congregation, Break it down for all of ya’ll simple and plain, I got love for a girl named Mary Jane.” – Coolio, Mary Jane
Is it the lot in life for People of African Descent “to be throwing up water like back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Aren’t we in the twenty-first century or not? With all the Reverse Osmosis Desalination plants in Antigua and Barbuda, we are still throwing up water to bath.”
GoAB has made a policy decision to Harvest potable water from an abundance of sea water using costly Desalinization Plants! A&B neither designs, creates, adequately maintains or generates good operating means and methods of the plants! Such behavioural patterns must be changed for sustainable policy instruments and quality informed procedures.
The Desalination Plants which are the engines for securing potable water have been seen as the most critical Process of the Antigua and Barbuda’s Water Supply Chain by all administrations even to the detriment of some beaches, inland bays and the marine environment! That the human resources to operate and maintain the processing has not been bolstered through continuous learning and capacity building shows a complete disconnect of the strategic and tactical imperatives that Processing should hold in the Water Utility department at APUA. That requires a complete overhaul and change management culture!
APUA is crying out for a Strategic Plan with input from All Stakeholders, Total Transformation of its Structure, Systems, Policies and Operating Procedures and an All Encompassing Change Management of Personnel and Skills!
Storage of water is not as glamourous as announcing a new desalination plant! Sadly, this area of the water supply chain has been widely neglected! A well designed and operated water utility would see Storage Capacity as the heart of its system through which water is supplied and distributed to the various stakeholders and customers! These Storage systems should be filled at periods of low water demand (usually at Night) to meet the supply needs at peak demand times (usually during the Day)! APUA and its Ministry, Bureaucrats, Administrators, Engineers, Technicians and Staff, who have travelled the world over viewing other well run water utilities, have not taken their heads out of the 365 beaches of sand and rock on Antigua and Barbuda! To improve the Water Utility more Strategic and tactical efforts and skills are in dire need to design, create, build and operate a sustainable and efficient storage system! This is not a quick fix! This will require data mining, digital analytics and major consultation with all stakeholders and customers! APUA does not have the Capacity heft to effect that change! GoAB and Higher Education must bring about new policy, learning and systems development within the next three years!
APUA as it now exists must be uprooted, and Transformed from “Cap’n to Cook!” Like little Bo Peep who “has lost her sheep and can’t tell where to find them”, the People of African Descent can no longer “leave them alone” with expectations that “they will come home bringing their tails behind them!”
Everyone knows that Distribution of Potable Water on Antigua and Barbuda is the weakest link in the Water Supply Chain! The Minister has admitted that distribution system loses more than 30% daily! Can you believe that happening in Private Industry with the CEO not being held accountable! Where is the Board! Where is the Cabinet! Throw out the Bums! Some say its due to old underground cast iron pipes! Some say the losses are due to improperly connected joints in the PVC underground lines! Some say the losses are due to poorly installed High Density Polyethylene pipes underground! Some have connected losses to the damages done from the regular closing of the water supply! Some have attributed the losses to the damages resulting from the unabated high-pressure delivery from the desalination plants to feed customer needs! It is accepted that the distribution system is a mess! Yet APUA, and its Ministry, Bureaucrats, Administrators, Engineers, Technicians and Staff continue to dig and patch rather than design, create, maintain and generate a sustainable and efficient new Distribution System!
Time to Change not only The Modus Vivendi and Operandi of The Water Utility but also the whole damn kit and kaboodle at APUA! Tranformation NOW! Mr. Minister APUA, The Honourable Prime Minister, “The cognitive and structural aspects of a paradigm are incomplete without the functional aspect. There is something more than knowing in the Afrocentric sense; there is also doing. Afrocentricity holds that all definitions are autobiographical.” Asante!
Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock!
“Fighting for the freedom of one’s people is not the only necessity. As long as the fight goes on you must enlighten not only the people but also, and above all, yourself on the full measure of man. You must retrace the paths of history, the history of man damned by other men, and initiate, bring about, the encounter between your own people and others.” ― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
APUA is crying out for a Strategic Plan with input from All Stakeholders, Total Transformation of its Structure, Systems, Policies and Operating Procedures and an All Encompassing Change Management of Personnel and Skills!
Skyewill from Johnson Village wants water to wash his “dutty foot!”
MP Browne, you only get one shot before the next Election!
Mr. Michael Browne, as the Representative from the Center, it is a fact of Nature, which abhors a vacuum, that all relationships are based on centers and margins and the distances from either the center or the margins. APUA is at the center of every Country WoMen and Rasta resident on the Rock … History has made you Central and centered you as a true Agent, and Champion with the political and “foundation” financial planning, creation and implementation of the economic and educational experience! From your Central Perch of the Saints, Let Friends and Foes alike know you will settle for none other than APUA! Let All who have ears to hear and eyes to see, be advised that you see that as a fundamental necessity for advancing the political, economic socio-cultural, technological, legal and environmental process. As the Ancestors taught, from the rich clays of your birth, “Work The Pestle in The Mortar!
“A bourgeoisie that has only nationalism to feed the people fails in its mission and inevitably gets tangled up in a series of trials and tribulations. If nationalism is not explained, enriched, and deepened, if it does not very quickly turn into a social and political consciousness, into humanism, then it leads to a dead end. A bourgeois leadership of the underdeveloped countries confines the national consciousness to a sterile formalism. Only the massive commitment by men and women to judicious and productive tasks gives form and substance to this consciousness.” ― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
“Oh Gad!” as Joanne Hillhouse would say, You have the Capacity to Work The Metaphors! Go Get ’em like our only Living Hero “da Mastah Blastah!”
“Neither stubborn courage not fine slogans are enough.” – Dr. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
And let’s not forget I would like to wash my stones as well.
Has this French man returned to kill the ANR blog pages with his rambling? Please ANR, put a limit on the number of post one person can make to a story. He is pissing BOOOOORING!!!
I agree with you!!!
He also seems to copy and paste these same comments on different articles
All of you ,leave John French II alone.He is using his given rights to comments as all of us are doing.Merry Christmas !! Welcome back John French II.
ABSOLUTLY! It will take a higher level of mental to get Frenchy. Anyway it’s not him. somehow, it’s the same post over and over. Welcome John French II. Welcome everyone!
Notes From A Native Son Of The Rock! “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,
ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.” ― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks!
The Falcon and the Snowman, we go way back long before many would even think of Isaac Royal, Medford, Mass and Harvard Law School Endowment from which Mi Gud Fren De Haitian Hero knows well that this mere voice in the wilderness does not “Lub Ugly” and will not engage in “Melee!” “Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions.” ― Frantz Fanon!
Skyewill, the Akan Warrior in Queen Yaa Asanteewaa’s Service, Would it be too much for the “nattering nabobs of negativity” to research how this News Portal has mined MP Michael Browne’s Facebook Townhall Meeting to publish all of the MB articles! This mere voice chooses to use repetition as the focus of MP Michael Browne’s dilemma (Whether he returns to Cabinet and in what Capacity) and raises the stakes (Don’t know if he is a Poker Player going up against the Old Silent Investor and the Wiley Socialist Entrepreneur) by focusing on what may be the most important ministry which needs major Quality, Organizational Improvements in measurements/bench- marking, leadership, employee involvement, process improvement, and customer focus! “Everything can be explained to the people, on the single condition that you want them to understand.” ― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
Ameisa, Maybe, Just Maybe the friendly critics will each decide to mentor and tutor a student who is having trouble with Mathematics given that the Failure rate in A&B is way North of 50% since they are doing nothing to educate APUA’s Customers, People of African Descent or change the trajectory of APUA!
WTF, I’ll not deny you and will save the Best for Last! APUA mothballed a Brand New Power Plant in less than15 years! Has APUA been a good Steward of the many Desalinization Plants in its asset base! Why are the PV Solar Plants not generating and providing Electricity to the People of African Descent! A little dirty secret, the VCBIA gets its electricity from the Old Oil (Bunker C which is the dirtiest) Fired Power Plant at the US Base at Coolidge when Uncle Sam departed and turned the land and the infrastructure over to GoAB and neither UPP or ABLP administrations had developed a plan for the assets! This mere voice in the wilderness advised that they should efficiently operate the plant for the remainder of it’s useful life and take the annual savings to invest in PV Solar Plants when APUA had effectively developed the inhouse capacity and not fall for Shiny Objects by “Greeks bearing Gifts!” Of course it was a lost cause as the late Time Hector would say “Every Deal is a Steal!” Why is APUA having difficulty providing Potable Water to the People of African Descent! Why is APUA Inet not the Primary Service Provider to the People of African Descent! We shall stay away from Melee and not say one word of APC or the Indo Briton! Those are in the Public Domain but will the “pu$illanimou$ pu$$yfooter$” do some research or reading since it is said they have been living in a mental exoplanetary Universe of 280 QWERTY! “The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.” ― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth!
Nuff Said!
I didn’t find it boring.
I thought,,,it were brilliant.
Thank you Sir,,,,for the early morning history and other,,lessons,,, intertwined in your comments.
Desperate opposition. Trying to grab every straw.
It’s better they had asked to get water from the moon
Alex Browne will be MINCE MEAT by the time Sir Robin´s constituents are finished with him next general election.
In the meantime, Alex can take a page out of Asot´s book and seek help for his rum-drinking habits.
The lacking of water situation in Antigua affects most of us.Those of the Political Elitists and the One Percenters could afford to buy their water privately.While those of us in the lower and poorer areas cannot even get water to take a bath.Mama cannot bathe,Papa cannot bathe,in 2021.
You’ve seen water trucks go by Lovell and Gisele Isaac-Arrindell? They’re as elitist as it gets.
No,I have not seen any water trucks going to Lovell’s and or Gisele’s Houses.I am too busy to be cooping them like you do.You are paid to do that and come onto this Medium and talk jive turkey and ham.Just do not choke while partaking of that turkey and ham.
Comments are closed.