SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) chair­man Rom­ney Thomas has de­nied that he and his CEO El­lis Bur­ris have been locked in a bit­ter war over pend­ing mass fir­ings at the wa­ter com­pa­ny.

In an in­ter­nal memo sent to staff on Mon­day, it stat­ed that Bur­ris was sent on 12 days va­ca­tion leave be­gin­ning De­cem­ber 17 with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

For­mer CEO Al­lan Poon King has been act­ing in Bur­ris’ ab­sence.

It was re­port­ed on so­cial me­dia that Bur­ris and Thomas were on the warpath over pend­ing mass fir­ings at WASA. How­ev­er, in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Thomas dis­pelled such re­ports.

“There is ab­solute­ly no truth that we fell out or had some kind of clash be­cause of some im­pend­ing lay­off at WASA. Al­so, we have no plans for any mass lay­offs at WASA. There is noth­ing on the cards for that. I could tell you that much,” Thomas in­sist­ed.

How­ev­er, Thomas ad­mit­ted that WASA has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to cer­tain mat­ters, which he said was too pre­ma­ture for him to com­ment on.

Asked if Bur­ris was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, Thomas re­fused to say.