General Manager of the Dominica Water and Sewerage Company Limited (DOWASCO), Bernard Ettinoffe, sums up 2025 as a year that the company has made “good strides”.
“We embarked on the water sector development program, for some time now, and we made good strides in the year 2025,” he said during an interview with State-Owned Radio DBS. “So in the Castle Bruce area, for example, we are almost completed with the running of pipes from the intake to treatment facility location, to the new storage tank location and most of the distribution lines within the community.”
He continued, “We are going to undertake the construction of the new intake early in 2026, and we are looking forward to a good supply system for the Castle Bruce Community.”
Ettinoffe added that the same was done in Grand Fond, Morne Jaune and Riviere Cyrique.
“Of course, there were little challenges when you know you are running new pipes, and there are old pipes, and some would get broken and so on, but we have always listened to the people,” he noted. “ We visited each of those communities, and we had good discussions, and I am happy that things went well and things are continuing to go very well with that project.”
Furthermore, he mentioned that DOWASCO had also been working in the Calibishie area.
“The main storage tank for the community is under construction as we speak,” he revealed. “We’ve run the supply lines, most of the distribution lines to-date. The intake is still to be constructed, but that will begin soon, and Calibishie will see much improvement in their water system compared to what they had before.”
He went on to state that in the communities of Grand Savanne, Coulibistrie, and Salisbury, DOWASCO is making progress and that the project will be completed by the end of April 2026, bringing significant improvement in the supply of water in those areas.
“We have touched almost everywhere in Dominica, improving water, trying to bring better quality and despite the more intense rainfall we’ve been having in recent times, we do have complaints for those reasons, but these are things we continue to work on,” Ettinoffe stated. “So all-in-all, it was a good year for DOWASCO.”
He thanked all the customers throughout Dominica for their support throughout over 2025, adding that they can look forward to greater dialogue and communication.
“To our staff as well, I want to say a big Merry Christmas. I really wish them well. They are the engines of DOWASCO, they are the people who make things happen on the fields, late at night [and] early mornings,” Ettinoffe said. “They all face the pressures that DOWASCO [faces] and in spite of that, they have done very well.”
In the meantime, he called on the Government of Dominica to continue to provide support for DOWASCO.
“It is something that we cannot overlook at all…,” Ettinoffe emphasized.
DOWASCO used to be such a class organization 👏. Even ole Granny could have afforded water.
It has now rendered the VI’s, Antigua, etc, with no rivers, far superior to us Dominicans who have hundreds of RIVERS flowing 24/7 uninterrupted to the sea.
They can afford imported water(not from us off-course), yet after hiring one “expert” from that drought stricken region, we cannot now afford… guess what, water 😢, but the superior people in Antigua and VIs can afford theirs?
Is it me or there’s something wrong?
I know we can rest assured….like increases water rates of $15 more for domestic and $300 small businesses and $800 for big businesses MONTHLY… this is indeed a great Christmas and looking forward for increases rates….ho ho ho….as Santa would say