SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Per­ceived ac­tions by Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Dr Lennox Sealy, which were not in keep­ing with Gov­ern­ment’s man­date to trans­form the au­thor­i­ty, have led to his shock­ing res­ig­na­tion yes­ter­day, a mere five months af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion.

Sealy’s de­par­ture fol­lowed the sus­pen­sion of a se­nior di­rec­tor last week over mis­lead­ing in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed to WASA’s board. WASA has com­menced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion against the di­rec­tor for al­leged mis­con­duct.

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that changes are al­so ex­pect­ed to be made soon with WASA’s ex­ec­u­tive struc­ture.

Fol­low­ing two pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sions with Sealy ear­li­er this week, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les had ex­pressed Gov­ern­ment’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion and dis­ap­point­ment over the slow pace at which WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion road map was un­fold­ing.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les said he was shocked and dis­ap­point­ed when Sealy shock­ing­ly of­fered his res­ig­na­tion dur­ing a third meet­ing they had yes­ter­day.

“I ex­pressed my con­cerns (to Sealy) on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment with re­spect to the pace of the trans­for­ma­tion. He of­fered his res­ig­na­tion and I ac­cept­ed it. The meet­ing was all about him ten­der­ing his res­ig­na­tion,” Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

WASA is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce Sealy’s re­place­ment in the com­ing days.

A re­lease is­sued by the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry yes­ter­day stat­ed that WASA’s deputy chair­man Ravin­dra Nan­ga has now as­sumed the WASA chair­man po­si­tion and the au­thor­i­ty’s board of com­mis­sion­ers will make an an­nounce­ment on the ap­point­ment of an in­ter­im ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment team that will work to­wards fa­cil­i­tat­ing a seam­less process of re­struc­tur­ing and trans­for­ma­tion of the au­thor­i­ty.

“The Gov­ern­ment felt that the trans­for­ma­tion was not pro­ceed­ing at a suf­fi­cient­ly rapid pace,” Gon­za­les was quot­ed as say­ing in the re­lease.

Since as­sum­ing of­fice in Feb­ru­ary, Sealy had come un­der heavy crit­i­cism for two de­ci­sions made.

Last month, Sealy found him­self in hot wa­ter af­ter he em­barked on a WASA dis­con­nec­tion dri­ve aimed at re­cov­er­ing close to $1 bil­lion in ar­rears in the height of the pan­dem­ic, which re­sult­ed in long lines out­side the util­i­ty’s of­fices.

The mat­ter led to a wave of ob­jec­tion by the pub­lic that caused Gon­za­les to in­struct the au­thor­i­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment and Sealy to dis­con­tin­ue the ex­er­cise.

In March, Sealy al­so wrote Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, who had been on no-pay leave at WASA for 11 years, in­form­ing him in two let­ters of the “un­ten­able na­ture of the in­def­i­nite time off” from WASA “for union’s busi­ness.”

Duke, who holds the po­si­tion of as­sis­tant man­ag­er, Em­ploy­ee Re­sourc­ing at WASA, took the mat­ter up with his lawyer and Sealy was forced to re­tract the warn­ing let­ters.

Duke took Sealy to task for mak­ing “bad de­ci­sions” and in­struct­ed his at­tor­ney to pur­sue the mat­ter, since Sealy’s let­ters had caused him pain, suf­fer­ing and un­due stress.

Asked yes­ter­day if the dis­con­nec­tion dri­ve which he stopped could have led Sealy to ten­der his res­ig­na­tion, Gon­za­les said no such thing hap­pened, nor did he en­gage in a rift or war of words with Sealy.

“It had noth­ing to do with it. I know the dis­con­nec­tion was bad­ly han­dled. We had a pro­fes­sion­al and cor­dial dis­cus­sion with each oth­er. He un­der­stood the con­cerns that I had and there­fore, we agreed that the Gov­ern­ment should have a free hand to make what­ev­er ad­just­ments that need to be made to en­sure that the trans­for­ma­tion process is not in any way com­pro­mised.”

Gon­za­les in­sist­ed that Sealy left WASA on good terms and was not forced out.

“Sealy left on am­i­ca­ble terms. It had every­thing to do with trans­for­ma­tion and noth­ing else.”

He said Sealy ac­tu­al­ly hand­ed in his res­ig­na­tion on Wednes­day but he (Gon­za­les) could not deal with it then.

“I could not have dealt with the mat­ter on Wednes­day, as I was in Ma­yaro ad­dress­ing some wa­ter prob­lems.”

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les arranged to meet with Sealy at 7 am yes­ter­day at his St Clair of­fice and ex­pressed his con­cerns at the slow pace of WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion process and ac­cept­ed his res­ig­na­tion.

Asked if there was room for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, Gon­za­les said, “No, we were not hap­py with the pace of trans­for­ma­tion.”

He said WASA should have been in an ad­vanced stage of trans­for­ma­tion to help pro­vide cit­i­zens with a re­li­able and ef­fi­cient wa­ter sup­ply.

Cab­i­net was ex­pect­ing a trans­for­ma­tion plan from WASA since April, Gon­za­les said.

A source at WASA yes­ter­day said Sealy be­came over­whelmed by op­er­a­tional is­sues and got side­tracked do­ing oth­er things.

With Sealy out the door, Gon­za­les said WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion ex­er­cise will have to be fast-tracked by Sealy’s re­place­ment.

“The board has to com­plete a trans­for­ma­tion plan with­in spe­cif­ic time­lines.

“It has to be ac­cel­er­at­ed. Be­fore the end of this cur­rent fi­nan­cial year, we should have a full trans­for­ma­tion plan.”

Wish­ing Sealy the best, Gon­za­les said his res­ig­na­tion will en­sure there are no fur­ther de­lays in putting WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion in place.

Asked how he felt about Sealy’s sud­den de­par­ture, Gon­za­les replied: “Per­son­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed, be­cause as a Gov­ern­ment and a min­is­ter, we had high hopes for his pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess on this very im­por­tant trans­for­ma­tion. So, yes, from a per­son­al point I am sad­dened by it. The coun­try re­quires this trans­for­ma­tion. It is nec­es­sary, so to put aside our per­son­al feel­ings and get ahead with the job.”

Gon­za­les ad­mit­ted he had high ex­pec­ta­tions of Sealy based on his im­pres­sive CV.

“I thought he would have been a per­fect can­di­date to lead the trans­for­ma­tion. So for me, per­son­al­ly I am sad­dened by the turns of events.”

Min­is­ter: No part­ing gift

about Sealy