Akash Samaroo
The Ministry of Public Utilities is expecting to spend $40 million to provide truck-borne water to citizens, more than double what it was allocated in the previous year.
During the Standing Finance Committee stage in Parliament yesterday, Couva North MP, Ravi Ratiram questioned why the allocation for “water trucking” ballooned from $18 million in fiscal 2024 to now $40 million.
In response, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales said, “We went through a very difficult dry season in 2024. As it is right now, the prediction from the MET Services Division of the Ministry of Public Utilities is that we would continue to have harsh dry conditions moving towards the end of 2024 going into 2025.”
Gonzales said as a result, there was an anticipated increased demand for water trucking services in unserved and underserved communities.
“This increased allocation as you are seeing here, is to allow WASA to continue to hire services for increased water trucking in some of our hard-hit communities,” Gonzales explained.
In April, Gonzales lamented that there were illegal water trucking schemes in T&T.
He said an operation was taking place in the heart of the Siparia district that affected about 5,000 residents.
At the time, the minister described the illegal sale of untreated water by private water truck operators as “scandalous.”
Meanwhile earlier this month, WASA reported that reservoir levels had been increasing steadily in Trinidad and have finally crossed the halfway mark based on the expected Long Term Average (LTA).
However, they are all still below the expected LTA.