“Blaze the Minister”: PM Browne Warns APUA Leadership as Water Woes Persist

Despite increased water production across Antigua and Barbuda, Prime Minister Gaston Browne says persistent supply disruptions will no longer be excused, warning that both the minister with responsibility for the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) and the authority’s management will be held answerable for continued distribution failures.

The Prime Minister made the comments during a radio interview after the commissioning of a second reverse osmosis facility under the APUA–Seven Seas Water Group partnership. The new plant is expected to boost national output by an additional two million gallons of water per day, bringing overall production to a level the government says is sufficient to meet domestic needs.

Browne stressed, however, that increased production means little if water is not reliably reaching households.
“Blaze me, blaze the minister, but blaze the minister more,” the Prime Minister said, adding that public criticism is a necessary part of accountability when essential services fall short.

While acknowledging that fixing the country’s water infrastructure has been a lengthy and costly undertaking, Browne said the government has already invested hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding production capacity. He argued that attention must now shift decisively toward fixing weaknesses in distribution.

The Prime Minister pointed to operational shortcomings within APUA, particularly delays in repairing damaged pipelines, which he said have left some communities without water for several days at a time.

“That cannot be acceptable,” Browne said, insisting that such prolonged outages must become a thing of the past.
He said both Minister Melford Nicholas and APUA’s senior management will be required to ensure measurable improvements, noting that while some internal changes have already been made to boost productivity, stronger oversight is now necessary.

Browne also signaled a more hands-on approach by Cabinet, saying the responsible minister will be expected to provide more detailed, “granular” reporting on distribution issues moving forward.

“It’s one thing to say we’re producing eleven or twelve million gallons of water,” the Prime Minister said. “But if distribution is poorly managed, people will still be frustrated.”