A senior retired Grenadian public officer has said that former Congress Foreign Minister Karl Hood should be given the praise for the EC$1.25M German Green Climate Funded water project in Grenada and not the main opposition New National Party (NNP) of Keith Mitchell.
Speaking to THE NEW TODAY, the ex-government employee sought to clarify recent statements made by Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell in which he gave credit to NNP for the project.
He said that he was very much involved back in the 2008-13 period in government of the Tillman Thomas-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration and the role played by Hood in signing an agreement with the German for the project back in 2010 at a Climate Change meeting in Mexico.
According to the former government employee, the senior Congress minister was accompanied to the outing by the then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elizabeth Greenidge-Henry.
Grenada was head of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the time and Hood was the Minister of The Environment at the time.
AOSIS is an inter-governmental organisation which was established in 1990 during the Second Would Climate Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
It plays an integral role in carrying out advocacy for small island states and influencing international environmental policy.
The retired public officer stressed that Hood should be credited “for starting the process” which resulted in the Germans making available over the financial package to Grenada to allow the state-controlled National Water & Sewerage Authority (NAWASA) to execute the project.
“He (Hood) had gone to Mexico to attend the Climate Change conference and while he was there he took the opportunity to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the German Organisation INWENT. It (G-CREWS) started then which is 2010 and the rightful person must be given the credit which is Karl Hood”.
“It was a project to get support from the Germans for Climate Change for Grenada. That is how the GIZ project got to Grenada. The credit comes through GIZ. Karl Hood was responsible for GIZ coming to Grenada and GIZ is the one who has led the G-CREWS so you can’t give NNP credit for G-CREWS. G-CREWS didn’t just come here out of the blues”.
“G-CREWS was under the Green Climate fund and discussions about accessing Green Climate Change funds started since during NDC time – you can’t give them (NNP) all the credit”.
Under the G-CREWS Project, there will be the development of new water supply from St Margaret’s River, construction of a new dam at Les Avocats, St David, the installation of 16 treated water storage reservoirs at locations throughout the country including Carriacou, and the installation of 20 km pipelines at locations throughout the island.
Regarded as the single largest investment to date in the island’s water sector, it is jointly financed by the Green Climate Fund and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under its International Climate Initiative (IKI), the Government of Grenada and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ).
The ex-government employee also denied suggestions that former NNP Climate Resilience Minister Simon Stiell and ex-Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Angus Friday had anything to do with the G-CREWS project and funding from the Germans.
He said that the two ex-NNP officials were engaged primarily in what is now known as the “Climate Smart Cities”.
“That’s what they were working with – I don’t know where they were going to get money for that,” he quipped.
“These things (Climate Smart Cities) were never given thorough thought and go through it,” he said.
THE NEW TODAY understands that the Climate Smart Cities concept was advanced by a current Permanent Secretary in government to Saudi Arabia for grant funding but was rejected on the grounds that it was not a project that could attract money from the Saudi Development Fund.