Clearford to provide sewer services in the Maldives
Ottawa-based Clearford Industries Inc. has signed an agreement with The Upper South Utilities Limited (USUL) of the Republic of Maldives to negotiate and enter into sewerage infrastructure projects for up to fifteen of the islands located in the country's Upper South Province, using Clearford's Small Bore Sewer system.
The parties have agreed to work in good faith to establish a binding contract for construction and financing that enables the Maldives to pay for the Clearford infrastructure over a 20-year period. The estimated value of the servicing program is $40 million.
The Republic of Maldives is located in the Indian Ocean off of the southwest tip of India and has a population of more than 300,000 people distributed over 200 inhabited islands out of a total of more than 1,000 islands controlled by the Republic.
Currently, sanitary sewers are installed on fewer than 12 of the inhabited islands.
The islands are coral and sand structures with a very porous nature.
Groundwater on the un-serviced islands is often contaminated by onsite disposal of human sewage.
As a result, residents on many of the islands rely upon both rainwater harvesting and commercially available bottled water as their sources of drinking and cooking water, with no alternative but to use contaminated groundwater for other household purposes.
Improving groundwater so as to minimize risk is considered the most effective way of developing a sustainable water supply, by avoiding total reliance on costly desalinated water as the main source of supply. Groundwater can only be improved by providing an appropriate piped wastewater collection system.
The intention of this agreement is for the parties to work together to secure financing, design and implementation of the projects using the Clearford waste-water collection and treatment process so as to enable collection and treatment of sewage on the un-serviced islands.
This agreement provides Clearford with an exclusive right to work with USUL for six months to secure financing terms from International Banking sources.
"The Maldives has been one of the 10 priority countries for Clearford during the last year of international business development," says Bruce Linton, president and CEO of Clearford. "We have interacted with and made proposals for servicing on some of the islands over this period. I am confident that we have a very knowledgeable customer and an optimal technical solution for their requirement."