Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says Trinidad and To­ba­go is years away from in­creas­ing wa­ter rates.

Im­bert opt­ed to re­fute claims made at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, which sug­gest­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led Gov­ern­ment would im­me­di­ate­ly in­crease wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates if re-elect­ed in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“Let me clar­i­fy what’s hap­pen­ing there as well. The process of de­ter­min­ing an agree­ment starts with the pub­li­ca­tion by the RIC of its rules, its frame­work and its ap­proach to a price re­form. Then there are a num­ber of con­sul­ta­tive doc­u­ments which in­form the RIC on how it’s go­ing to ap­proach price re­form. The first thing a util­i­ty has to do is to sub­mit a busi­ness plan, and of course, the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion will look at it, check it, ask a num­ber of ques­tions,” said Im­bert at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce An­nu­al Busi­ness meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Im­bert con­firmed that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty sub­mit­ted a busi­ness plan last No­vem­ber, but there had been lit­tle progress since then.

“WASA has sub­mit­ted a busi­ness plan and sub­mit­ted it in No­vem­ber of 2024 but the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion has asked WASA a se­ries of ques­tions, and WASA has not yet sub­mit­ted the re­spons­es. I’m told they will sub­mit it this week, and then there may be an­oth­er round of dis­cus­sion be­tween the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion and WASA with re­spect to that busi­ness plan. Af­ter the busi­ness plan is ac­cept­ed, you have pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, then you have draft de­ter­mi­na­tion again, more pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, and then the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion,” said Im­bert.

He added, “I want to de­bunk what I saw on tele­vi­sion... I found that was a strange thing for the Op­po­si­tion MP to say, that as soon as the PNM wins the next elec­tion we will im­me­di­ate­ly in­crease wa­ter rates and elec­tric­i­ty rates. Ab­solute non­sense. With re­spect to WASA, we’re years away from even that de­ter­mi­na­tion with re­spect to sup­ply.”

Im­bert, how­ev­er, felt that re­form was need­ed for both the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) and WASA, as he not­ed that the Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed Plant was still un­der­go­ing mod­erni­sa­tion up­grades to avoid the ma­jor black­outs ex­pe­ri­enced in 2013 and 2022.

Im­bert al­so pub­licly en­dorsed his re­place­ment in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Vish­nu Dhan­paul, who he said had been cru­cial to the min­istry’s op­er­a­tions in the past decade.

“Mr Dhan­paul is very much, very in­formed in terms of what we have been do­ing for the last nine and a half years, and I have to­tal con­fi­dence in him to con­tin­ue the work we’ve been do­ing in the Min­istry of Fi­nance,” said Im­bert.