Government has been able to significantly increase the power generation capacity in Tobago with the coming on stream of the Cove Power Plant. This has helped close the gap created when damage was done to one of the submarine cables which developed a fault on September 17.

While the situation has not yet normalised, it has increased significantly, Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference.

Addressing the electricity difficulties facing the sister island which began last month, Abdul-Hamid said Tobago had been served by electricity generation from three sources-the Power Plant at Scarborough and two submarine cables running from Trinidad to Tobago.

He said the repair to the faulty submarine cable required special vessels, equipment and deep-sea divers. He said the European firm which will be doing the repair work will take three months to do the job. He said the cable had been insured, therefore, Government would recover the costs.

The minister said T&TEC had put in place mechanisms to deal with the situation, such as asking those with generators to use them. But, he said, these interventions were not ideal or sustainable.

He said Government had begun construction of a new Cove Power Plant in September 2007 and that there were still outstanding matters for this plant when the difficulties developed as a result of the damaged submarine cable.

Pending the training of local technicians, Abdul-Hamid said T&TEC has entered into a short-term arrangement with Wasilla, whose technicians are overseeing the operations of the plant. The minister stressed that with the operation of this plant, Tobago now had more than adequate electricity available on site to satisfy its needs. -Ria Taitt