Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh has been ap­point­ed act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA). This is the third ap­point­ment of a CEO at the State-run com­pa­ny since Jan­u­ary. Dr Jim Lee Young and British na­tion­al An­drew Smith each served four months be­fore re­sign­ing. Singh served as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter from 1995 to 2001 af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress won the gen­er­al elec­tion for the first time.

He is a co-host of the Morn­ing Pan­chay­at on 106.1 fm and was the MP for Ca­roni East. Ef­forts to con­tact Singh were fu­tile. Dur­ing that time, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Em­manuel George was Singh's per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. George made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the min­istry's of­fices, Eliz­a­beth Street, St Clair, yes­ter­day. He said the pur­pose of the me­dia con­fer­ence was to in­form the na­tion about WASA's pro­pos­als to bring re­lief to cus­tomers af­fect­ed by an in­ad­e­quate and un­re­li­able sup­ply of wa­ter. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said, it was "to in­form of cer­tain de­vel­op­ments at WASA. George said Smith had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion "in recog­ni­tion of the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion by the peo­ple of T&T of a new Gov­ern­ment." His res­ig­na­tion comes in­to ef­fect from Ju­ly 31.

Smith was ap­point­ed by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion on April 12.

George said one of the first tasks of the new board af­ter it is ap­point­ed would be to ap­point a CEO. "In the mean­time, how­ev­er, and un­til such an ap­point­ment is made, I have tak­en the de­ci­sion to ap­point Mr Gan­ga Singh as act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty," he added. He said WASA had set a tar­get to pro­vide wa­ter at least two days a week to the pop­u­la­tion with­in the first year of Gov­ern­ment's man­date. He added: "The goal to sup­ply wa­ter a min­i­mum of two days a week to those who cur­rent­ly re­ceive a sup­ply less than that or none at all with­in a year is, you will agree, a for­mi­da­ble task and this is the ma­jor rea­son for my de­ci­sion to have Mr Gan­ga Singh take on the task of chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

"Hav­ing worked with Mr Gan­ga Singh pre­vi­ous­ly, I am aware that he is ex­pe­ri­enced and quite knowl­edge­able about the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty and of the is­sue of de­liv­er­ing wa­ter to the pop­u­la­tion, and the pop­u­la­tion, I think, is quite aware of his com­pe­tence. 'We can­not af­ford the lux­u­ry of a la­cu­na at the lev­el of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer," George said. The min­is­ter said ar­eas which fall un­der the Point Fortin, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Ma­yaro/Rio Claro, Princes Town, Debe/Pe­nal and Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions were the worst served. Those ar­eas had the high­est per­cent­age of cus­tomers who re­ceived a class five sup­ply of wa­ter which was less than two days a week, he added. George said in or­der to achieve the goal of pro­vid­ing wa­ter two days a week to the en­tire pop­u­la­tion with­in a year, he need­ed peo­ple who could "hit the ground run­ning."

WASA's im­me­di­ate tasks/plans:

�2 En­sure each com­mu­ni­ty re­ceives wa­ter at least two days a week;

�2en­sure ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50,000 stand­pipe cus­tomers are con­nect­ed to WASA's net­work;

�2 a com­pre­hen­sive plan to iden­ti­fy long-term im­prove­ments;

�2 is­sues of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty;

�2 cus­tomer ser­vice; and,

�2 project dead­lines.