SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI and

AN­NA-LISA PAUL

“A scan­dal of the high­est or­der.”

This is how Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day de­scribed the pay­ment of over $1.1 mil­lion in over­time to six of­fi­cials of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) em­ployed at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) dur­ing a three-year pe­ri­od. One of the PSA of­fi­cials alone re­ceived over half a mil­lion dol­lars of this fig­ure.

Out­raged over the wan­ton spend­ing, fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, mis­man­age­ment and cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ties at the cash-strapped au­thor­i­ty in the past, the an­gry min­is­ter has promised to make the per­pe­tra­tors ac­count­able.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Gon­za­les said, “It’s a scan­dalous state of af­fairs and a breach of the pub­lic’s trust by those en­trust­ed with the solemn du­ty to man­age the au­thor­i­ty.”

This as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the op­er­a­tions of WASA and al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct by for­mer hu­man re­sources di­rec­tor Ken Ma­habir raised in a 2016 au­dit by WASA’s Le­gal De­part­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the au­dit, which was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, $1,142,609.15 was paid to six union of­fi­cials in ex­ces­sive com­mut­ed over­time (COT) dur­ing Jan­u­ary 2013 to Ju­ly 2016.

The pay­outs would have tak­en place dur­ing Ma­habir’s tenure. He served as di­rec­tor from June 28, 2011 be­fore re­turn­ing to the au­thor­i­ty on con­tract from Jan­u­ary 1, 2015. Fol­low­ing the 74-page au­dit, he was sus­pend­ed on June 16, 2016 and lat­er fired on March 8, 2017.

Au­dit doc­u­ments re­vealed the high­est paid of the six PSA of­fi­cials re­ceived $504,589.52 in to­tal ex­ces­sive COT dur­ing a 43-month pe­ri­od.

The re­port showed the six PSA union of­fi­cials were paid a to­tal of $947,307.03 in ex­ces­sive COT, with a fur­ther $195,302.12 be­ing paid in ex­ces­sive COT af­ter the ap­proved pe­ri­od.

A break­down re­vealed the high­est paid PSA ex­ec­u­tive re­ceived $17,795.08 per month in ex­ces­sive COT, when he should have re­ceived $5,931.69 per month. He was paid $11,863.39 per month in ex­ces­sive COT dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2013 to June 2016.

The sec­ond ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber re­ceived a to­tal of $97,938.42 in ex­ces­sive COT be­tween Ju­ly 2014 to Ju­ly 2016 dur­ing a 25-month pe­ri­od. That mem­ber al­so al­leged­ly re­ceived pay­ments for 12 months in ex­cess of the agreed pe­ri­od. The break­down showed the work­er re­ceived $3,860.91 per month, when she should have not re­ceived any COT.

An­oth­er work­er col­lect­ed a to­tal of $95,799.37 in ex­ces­sive COT pay­ments dur­ing No­vem­ber 2014 to June 2016 dur­ing a 20-month pe­ri­od and for eight months in ex­cess of the agreed pe­ri­od. He re­ceived $9,469.47 per month, when he should have re­ceived $4,734.74 per month. He was paid an ex­cess of $4,734.73 in COT be­tween No­vem­ber 2014 to June 2016.

Yet an­oth­er work­er re­ceived $86,121.16 in ex­ces­sive COT pay­ments dur­ing No­vem­ber 2014 to June 2016 dur­ing a 20-month pe­ri­od and for eight months in ex­cess of the agreed pe­ri­od. A break­down re­vealed he re­ceived $8,512.79 per month in COT pay­ments, when he should have got $4,256.39 per month. He was paid an ex­cess of $4,256.40 per month dur­ing the pe­ri­od No­vem­ber 2014 to June 2016.

Two re­main­ing PSA ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers re­ceived $81,430.55 and $81,428.01 re­spec­tive­ly in ex­ces­sive COT pay­ments from Ju­ly 2014 and con­tin­u­ing up to Ju­ly 2016 dur­ing a 25-month pe­ri­od. The two each re­ceived monies for 12 months in ex­cess of the agreed pe­ri­od.

A break­down showed one of them re­ceived $3,210.14 per month, when she should not have re­ceived any COT pay­ments. She was paid an ex­cess of $3,210.14 for the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 2014 to Ju­ly 2016. The au­dit re­vealed the oth­er work­er re­ceived $3,210.04 per month, when she too should not have re­ceived any COT pay­ments. She was al­so paid an ex­cess of $3,210.04 for the pe­ri­od Ju­ly 2014 to Ju­ly 2016.

PSA is one of three unions that rep­re­sents dai­ly-paid and month­ly rat­ed work­ers at WASA. The oth­er two are the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) and the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA).

Al­though it was claimed NUGFW rep­re­sen­ta­tives had re­ceived COT pay­ments, no break-downs were in­clud­ed among the au­dit doc­u­ments.

The re­port found that Ma­habir au­tho­rised the pay­ment of over­time for­gone by the union of­fi­cials of the NUGFW’s WASA sec­tion from Jan­u­ary 2011 to De­cem­ber 2014 with­out seek­ing ap­proval from the board and Hu­man Re­source Com­mit­tee. These pay­ments amount­ed to $726,718.

The au­dit stat­ed that there was no doc­u­men­ta­tion to sup­port sug­ges­tions that Ma­habir had per­formed due dili­gence checks to en­sure the ac­cu­ra­cy and le­git­i­ma­cy of the re­quest­ed amount to be re­mit­ted to these of­fi­cials.

It fur­ther found that Ma­habir au­tho­rised pay­ments of over­time fore­gone and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing al­lowances to ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the NUGFW WASA Sec­tion, to­talling $1,426,718, with­out seek­ing ap­provals from the CEO, board and Hu­man Re­source Com­mit­tee.

On Mon­day, NUGFW pres­i­dent James Lam­bert said work­ers did not give them­selves over­time and as such, they had noth­ing to an­swer for and it was the man­age­ment which should ac­count.

Yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les chal­lenged the PSA to say if it is, “will­ing to re­pay the monies paid to some of its of­fi­cers to al­low the pur­chase of PPE uni­forms for work­ers to do their jobs ef­fec­tive­ly or to al­low WASA to buy ma­te­ri­als to re­pair bro­ken pipelines so that our cit­i­zens can get wa­ter in their taps?”