New­ly ap­point­ed chair­man of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age (WASA) Au­thor­i­ty Dr Lennox Sealy is invit­ing all em­ploy­ees of the cash strapped com­pa­ny to make rec­om­men­da­tions to re­duce spend­ing as they face a crit­i­cal cri­sis on their hands.

He al­so warned that WASA will ramp up its rev­enue col­lec­tion dri­ve this year to be­come vi­able.

Sealy put for­ward the rec­om­men­da­tion in the first is­sue of WASA’s 2021 chair­man bul­letin re­cent­ly sent out to WASA work­ers.

The bul­letin re­mind­ed the em­ploy­ees that as an emerg­ing na­tion, WASA which ser­vices the pub­lic has to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for run­ning its af­fairs.

He point­ed out that while we con­tin­ued to de­vel­op with the State tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ma­jor sec­tors of the econ­o­my such as oil and gas, we struck a low point in the 1980’s and faced one cri­sis af­ter an­oth­er, in­clud­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

Then we saw two decades of po­lit­i­cal change lead­ing up to 2020.

He said the rea­son for re­flect­ing on the past was to put the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry with­in con­text, stat­ing that TSTT trans­formed due to op­tic fi­bre and cel­lu­lar tech­nol­o­gy, while T&TEC has been split in­to two pow­er gen­er­a­tion (Pow­er­Gen) and dis­tri­b­u­tion (T&TEC).

“We are all in a sit­u­a­tion where we must take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for run­ning util­i­ties that are no longer de­pen­dent sole­ly on gov­ern­ment for fi­nanc­ing,” Sealy stat­ed.

Stress­ing that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has caused this im­per­a­tive to be even more crit­i­cal now, Sealy point­ed out that cus­tomers need ser­vice and man­age­ment must now find cre­ative ways of de­liv­er­ing this ser­vice.

“We no longer have op­tions.” Sealy point­ed out.

In his six weeks of serv­ing as chair­man, Sealy said he is de­ter­mined to find lead­er­ship to put WASA on a bet­ter foot­ing.

He stat­ed that his first ini­tia­tive is “cost re­duc­tion, rev­enue col­lec­tion and reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion pro­gramme.”

In terms of cost re­duc­tion, Sealy in­vit­ed “all em­ploy­ees to make rec­om­men­da­tions for ways in which WASA can re­duce its spend­ing. In this re­gard there are no sa­cred cows. All sug­ges­tions are wel­come whether it per­tains to ex­ec­u­tive salaries, lease costs or even elec­tric­i­ty and tele­phone costs or rental costs.”

WASA has a work­force of 5,000.

Sealy said all ideas of im­prove­ment can be emailed to him at Lennox.sealy@WASA.gov.tt.

“I am ful­ly aware that for some of our core ac­tiv­i­ties, for ex­am­ple, leak­ing pipelines, em­ploy­ees have of­ten had to sup­ply fit­tings from their own pock­ets. It is how­ev­er dif­fi­cult to go cap in hand to Gov­ern­ment for fund­ing, if we our­selves are not show­ing or find­ing ways of re­duc­ing our spend­ing.”

Re­gard­ing rev­enue col­lec­tion, Sealy said while he em­pathised with the pre­vi­ous board whose po­si­tion was not to be ag­gres­sive with rev­enue col­lec­tion giv­en the eco­nom­ic reper­cus­sions of the pan­dem­ic.

“How­ev­er, as we en­ter the al­most sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic I be­lieve we need to re­turn to the mount­ing of a firm rev­enue col­lec­tion dri­ve.”

Last Ju­ly, WASA’s CEO Al­lan Poon King stat­ed that the wa­ter com­pa­ny was owed $800 mil­lion by res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers.

With re­gards to reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion. Sealy said, much of which per­tains to hu­man re­source arrange­ments which have not fol­lowed best prac­tice.

“I have asked that these arrange­ments be ter­mi­nat­ed so that we can re­set the or­gan­i­sa­tion and make a fresh start. We are in a re­al cri­sis and we have to find ways, in spite of every­thing, to show ef­fi­cien­cy even if it means re­or­gan­i­sa­tion of WASA in­to a more vi­able form.”

Sealy promised to in­tro­duce oth­er ini­tia­tives to help turn around WASA dur­ing his two year tenure­ship.