Pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank Ilan Gold­fa­jn yes­ter­day paid a cour­tesy call on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley where the first draw­down of a US$80 mil­lion loan to re­ha­bil­i­tate this coun­try’s wa­ter sec­tor was signed.

The loan agree­ment was signed by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Gold­fa­jn and over­seen by Dr Row­ley.

The of­fi­cial sign­ing took place at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the XI An­nu­al Con­sul­ta­tion of Caribbean Gov­er­nors.

Last De­cem­ber the IDB an­nounced that it had ap­proved a US$80 mil­lion loan to boost the ef­fi­cien­cy, qual­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and re­silience of T&T’s drink­ing wa­ter sup­ply and wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty.

“As part of a US$315 mil­lion con­di­tion­al cred­it line for the T&T Na­tion­al Wa­ter Sec­tor Trans­for­ma­tion Pro­gram, this ini­tial op­er­a­tion will in­clude in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing to help the coun­try’s Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and its ex­e­cut­ing agency, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), im­prove their gov­er­nance and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of wa­ter re­sources,” the IDB stat­ed in the re­lease.

“The pro­gram will di­rect­ly ben­e­fit an es­ti­mat­ed 1,025,000 res­i­dents (310,665 house­holds), plus an ad­di­tion­al 279,500 res­i­dents (84,705 house­holds) in sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 16,841 busi­ness, agri­cul­tur­al, and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers and char­i­ta­ble in­sti­tu­tions in dif­fer­ent sup­ply ar­eas will ben­e­fit as well,” it stat­ed.

The pro­gram will sup­port WASA’s op­er­a­tional, com­mer­cial, and tech­ni­cal man­age­ment by pro­vid­ing ac­cess to in­no­v­a­tive dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion tools and tech­nolo­gies and da­ta-dri­ven man­age­ment sys­tems.

“WASA’s ser­vices will be up­grad­ed through net­work re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and op­ti­mi­sa­tion, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, in­te­grat­ed wa­ter re­sources man­age­ment, cli­mate change and nat­ur­al dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, and lever­ag­ing the IDB’s ex­pe­ri­ence in wa­ter loss re­duc­tion projects. All of these ac­tions promise to low­er the agency’s op­er­at­ing costs and sub­si­dies,” the IDB stat­ed.

The pro­gram is aligned with the IDB Group’s coun­try strat­e­gy for T&T 2021–2025, specif­i­cal­ly the strate­gic ob­jec­tive of op­ti­mis­ing dig­i­tal ser­vice de­liv­ery by digi­tis­ing op­er­a­tional process­es and adopt­ing smart tech­nol­o­gy for wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture and re­lat­ed in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies.

The loan will be dis­bursed over the course of four years, with a 25-year re­pay­ment term, a 5.5-year grace pe­ri­od, and an in­ter­est rate based on the se­cured overnight fi­nanc­ing rate (SOFR).

“It is ex­pect­ed that an es­ti­mat­ed 1,025,000 peo­ple in tar­get­ed un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties will ben­e­fit from the new in­fra­struc­ture to be built un­der the pro­gramme, with an ad­di­tion­al 16,841 com­mer­cial, char­i­ta­ble in­sti­tu­tions, agri­cul­tur­al and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers al­so gain­ing ac­cess to im­proved wa­ter sup­ply ser­vice,”the IDB stat­ed yes­ter­day..

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the sign­ing, IDB’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Robert Le Hunte said the loan is part of a holis­tic plan.

Le Hunte said this first com­po­nent had spe­cif­ic guide­lines.

He said the meet­ing yes­ter­day was “very en­cour­ag­ing.”

This is Gold­fa­jn’s first vis­it to the Caribbean since he took of­fice for a five-year term on De­cem­ber 19, 2022.

The IDB Group held its XI An­nu­al Con­sul­ta­tion with the Gov­er­nors of the coun­tries com­pris­ing its Caribbean Coun­try De­part­ment and the Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank in Port-of-Spain.

Gold­fa­jn con­clud­ed his first to T&T with a vis­it to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MoWT) Na­tion­al Traf­fic Man­age­ment Branch in Ca­roni to view the en­hanced dig­i­tal sys­tems and tools be­ing used to man­age road main­te­nance, con­ges­tion lev­els, crew de­ploy­ment and pro­vide an ear­ly warn­ing sys­tem, which are be­ing de­ployed un­der a part­ner­ship with the IDB and MoWT.