By Peoples Television
Faced with continuing skepticism over his administration’s relentless pursuit of a 30 million dollar power station which Montserrat may not really need, Chief minister Reuben Meade’s position was that this is a done deal and not worth discussing any further.
The chief minister’s comment was in response to questions posed by journalists on Tuesday. (June 7, 2011)
The chief minister’s declaration that the 30 million dollars power plant investment is a done deal would have been more palatable to the majority were it not for the fear of further escalations in the burdensome price of electricity generated by burning diesel.
His response when the matter was raised on Tuesday gave no immediate hope of relief.
While there can be no doubt that Montserrat is tired to death of unscheduled power outages like those of Friday morning, the only thing the country fears more than them is a further increase in the surging fuel surcharge that dominates every electricity bill from MUL.
Stopping this stifling charge remains the great lure of geothermal energy. Reacting to the chief minister, people agree that to invest in a venture that would end the fuel surcharge would be one thing. To invest in prolonging it – unless absolutely necessary, is another.
Hope ignited by Governor Davis of short term, geothermal drilling is proving hard to extinguish at this time when the terrifying fuel surcharge looks like getting worse.