Electricity bills for just three Government buildings are costing taxpayers more than $230,000 a month, it has been revealed.

And a further $200,000 of public money was squandered by the former Government after it failed to taken advantage of a discount given to customers who pay their Belco bills promptly.

Public Works Minister Trevor Moniz announced the cost in a statement to MPs in the House of Assembly this morning.

The Minister added that Government is now investigating ways in which it can reduce fuel consumption — and has also become more “efficient” in paying its bills in order to cash in on the early payment discount.

“The electricity cost for the Dame Lois Browne Evans Police and Court Building, Global House and the Government Administration Building together totals over $230,000 per month,” Mr Moniz said.

“Cognisant that these buildings are fairly large and house a number of Government departments, the Estates Section has been working very closely with the Electrical Section within the Department of Works and Engineering, as well as the Department of Energy to find ways to reduce energy consumption.

“A pilot project is currently being developed for the Dame Lois Browne Evans building that will involve an audit of the electricity use with monitoring equipment over a period of a few months.

“Since this is a relatively new building, it will make a good test bed to measure the cost effectiveness of any innovative energy reducing technology or processes implemented and will act as an exemplar for our other buildings.”

“Our intent is to then identify the main electricity demands and introduce both technology and use changes to reduce the costs. It is anticipated that significant savings will be made and that the project can then be expanded to other Government buildings — including the public schools.”

Mr Moniz said that bill discounts had not been taken advantage of by the former Progressive Labour Party administration — which could have saved the taxpayer $200,000 had it promptly paid bills for the court building and police station in 2011 and 2012.

“In addition to reducing energy consumption, the Ministry has become more efficient in paying its utility bills in a more timely fashion,” he said.

“The Belco bills for the three main buildings of Dame Lois Browne Evans, Global House and the Government Administration Building offer a discount of approximately $16,000 per month, if the bills are paid by their discount date.

“For your information, the Dame Lois Brown Building had missed $200,000.00 in discounts from the beginning of 2011 up until the beginning of this year.

“Whilst in the past we did not always meet the discount date owing to delays in the accounting process among other factors, I’ve challenged the team to streamline the payment process and make meeting the discount deadline a high priority. This streamlined process now sees the Department making the discount date and saving on average $16,000 per month as stated previously.”

Mr Moniz also revealed that Government had been able to cut its rent bill by more than $2 million after renegotiating leases with landlords.

“Whilst the Government owns a large portfolio of properties, it is not enough to house all of these departments and their specific needs,” he said.

“These needs are very diverse and Island wide — ranging from marina berths for the Police in St. George’s, office space in the City of Hamilton to the Hazardous Waste Site in Dockyard.

For the fiscal year 2013/14 a total of $13.2 million was budgeted to rent properties from which Government departments can fulfil their mandates. It has been the goal of the Estates Section to reduce these rental costs through a combination of bringing departments into Government-owned buildings where possible, carry out rent reviews or lease renewals and negotiating rent reductions to reflect the current market values for those departments that must rent from the private sector.

“The savings in rents has primarily been achieved through renegotiated leases to current levels of rental value. However, moving Government Departments in house has also assisted with reductions. As an example, the move of the Department of Labour and Training into the old Magistrates’ Court Building has resulted in a savings of $409,000 per annum alone.

“In addition, the Estates Section reviews the various departments actual use of real estate to ensure the space occupied is being used efficiently, is fit for purpose, and that space exceeding operational needs is given up.

“By a combination of these actions the Estates Section has reduced the outgoing rent in this fiscal year from $13.2 million to $11.02 million — a total savings of approximately $2.2 million or 16 percent.”