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House approves $496.3M to establish state-owned water bottling plant
(Kaieteur News) – The National Assembly on Monday approved $496.3 million to establish Guyana’s first state-owned water bottling plant, a move that furthers President Irfaan Ali’s push for the country to achieve 100 percent locally produced bottled water.
The money, allocated under Guyana Water Inc.’s (GWI) coastal water supply services budget, will finance a facility aimed at reducing the country’s reliance on imported bottled water.
Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation Deodat Indar announced the approval in a Facebook post on Tuesday, describing the plant as “a strategic national project that enhances Guyana’s economic resilience, self-sufficiency, and long-term water security.”
House approves $496.3M to establish state-owned water bottling plant
Despite Guyana’s abundant freshwater resources and GWI’s extensive treatment and distribution network, the country has continued to depend heavily on imported bottled water. Indar said establishing a GWI-operated plant could change that and lower prices for consumers in the process.
By producing locally, GWI would eliminate costs tied to international freight, marine insurance, import handling fees, and distributor markups, the minister explained. He added that the initiative supports GWI’s broader mission of ensuring universal access to safe, reliable drinking water across the country.
The push for local production traces back to February, when President Ali, during the commissioning of a water treatment plant at Five Miles, Bartica, in Region Seven, gave the Ministry of Public Utilities and Aviation a 12-month deadline to end reliance on imported bottled water, Kaieteur News reported.
“You can’t be such a resource rich country in fresh water and be importing bottled water,” President Ali said at the time.
He called on the ministry to work with the private sector to build local capacity, suggesting a shared approach to production could keep costs down. Rather than have every producer invest in its own bottling equipment, he proposed a more efficient model.
“Every entity don’t need to have a bottle blower. We can have one entity to produce all of the plastic bottle at standard size across the country, so that we have economies of scale,” President Ali said, adding that officials should examine every stage of production to find further savings.
The President said GWI officials had assured him the utility could bottle water economically enough to sell it for $100 or less.
“What we have to do is work with the private sector to see how we can actualize this, so that a country that is known as the land of many waters can have the cheapest water available to its people, and that is what we have to do,” he said.
With the funding now approved, attention turns to how quickly GWI can move from planning to production as the government’s 12-month target approaches.
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Our honourable President Ali should be commended for this plan the only thing can be said is when is it going to be done and how long would it really take, as we can see many of the Government’s projects starts and sometimes Never finishes on time. Hopefully it would as it would benefit all our Guyanese citizens definitely