JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 7, 2025

Barry slams PNM for picking WASA boss who could not handle $13.4M transformation plan: 'FAILED CEO'

by

Jesse Ramdeo
12 days ago
20250625

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has slammed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), call­ing out their trans­for­ma­tion plan and ap­point­ment of Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, whom he de­scribed as a “failed CEO from Bar­ba­dos,” to helm the agency. He de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap the trans­for­ma­tion plan, say­ing it cost the tax­pay­er $13.4 mil­lion and would have sent home 2,500 work­ers.

Padarath de­liv­ered the scathing at­tack dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion on the mo­tion to adopt the re­port of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee on Mon­day night.

“They brought in a failed CEO from Bar­ba­dos who had very lit­tle track record in terms of change man­age­ment, in terms of chang­ing out the au­thor­i­ty. In­stead, they were look­ing to pass the buck on to some­body else for why the trans­for­ma­tion plan would have failed, be­cause there was no po­lit­i­cal will to get it done,” Padarath said.

He crit­i­cised the PNM for us­ing tax­pay­er dol­lars on the plan, not­ing it cost mil­lions of in tax­pay­er funds to de­vel­op and would have threat­ened around 2,500 WASA em­ploy­ees had the PNM re­mained in pow­er af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“The plan alone cost­ed tax­pay­ers 13.4 mil­lion dol­lars. Hear what were the main rec­om­men­da­tions Mr Speak­er, 1,500 month­ly paid jobs to be made re­dun­dant. They were go­ing home Mr Speak­er, 1,200 dai­ly paid work­ers made re­dun­dant. They were go­ing home, and this was just in the first in­stance, tak­ing you to about 2,500 work­ers from WASA go­ing home in the first in­stance.”

Padarath said a re­view of the trans­for­ma­tion plan re­vealed that $1.8 mil­lion was paid to the head of trans­for­ma­tion but no tar­gets were set by WASA.

He al­so claimed sig­nif­i­cant sums were paid to a con­sul­tant, while over $1m was paid to mem­bers of a le­gal team for work done in the last year.

Hal­l­i­day, a St Kitts Nevis na­tion­al, was an­nounced as WASA CEO on Au­gust 30, 2024 but for­mal­ly as­sumed of­fice on De­cem­ber 1, 2024, af­ter a one-month de­fer­ral. Hal­l­i­day had pre­vi­ous­ly been serv­ing as gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Bar­ba­dos Wa­ter Au­thor­i­ty (BWA). He was cred­it­ed with trans­form­ing the BWA in­to a “ze­ro-bud­get en­ti­ty” dur­ing his tenure there.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Hal­l­i­day for a re­sponse to Padarath’s claim about him but there was no re­sponse from him up to press time.

Padarath had pre­vi­ous­ly dis­missed al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence at WASA, fol­low­ing claims that he was over­step­ping his of­fice by as­sign­ing ju­nior staffers to over­see Hal­l­i­day’s work.

For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les made the al­le­ga­tion, nam­ing Je­van Joseph and Kr­ish­na Per­sads­ingh as the two in­di­vid­u­als al­leged­ly act­ing on the min­is­ter’s be­half at WASA.

How­ev­er, Padarath de­scribed this claim as base­less, in­sist­ing Hal­l­i­day re­port­ed di­rect­ly to him while the au­thor­i­ty was await­ing the ap­point­ment of a new board. The board was even­tu­al­ly ap­point­ed on June 5.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Padarath ques­tioned the com­po­si­tion of the WASA trans­for­ma­tion man­age­ment team.

“What was very strange was the names of the le­gal team, Rus­sell Mar­tineau SC, which the mem­ber for Bara­tria/San Juan spoke about, so mem­ber, this is more than the one bil­lion you spoke about but then you have the first gen­tle­man Ker­win Gar­cia, who was prob­a­bly spread­ing the gospel in WASA as well.”

He al­so ac­cused the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of award­ing $25 mil­lion in con­tracts at WASA to an in­di­vid­ual who al­so al­leged­ly served as a cam­paign man­ag­er for the PNM in the Arou­ca/Lopinot con­stituen­cy.

He claimed among the con­tracts was a $3 mil­lion sole-se­lect award ap­proved days be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“There was a set­ting up of a trans­for­ma­tion of­fice. I then asked where is this of­fice? Is it at WASA? No­body could tell me where this of­fice is. Lat­er, I found out that they leased an of­fice on Scott-Bushe Street for 3 mil­lion dol­lars for five peo­ple to op­er­ate out of. When I start­ed to ask the ques­tions, I got two res­ig­na­tions.”

Padarath said he had al­ready sent a file on their find­ings to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to de­ter­mine if fur­ther ac­tion could be tak­en.

The WASA plan im­ple­ment­ed by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion sought to ad­dress the long-stand­ing is­sues of in­ef­fi­cien­cy, poor ser­vice de­liv­ery, and fi­nan­cial con­straints with­in the au­thor­i­ty through a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach that in­clud­ed man­age­ment re­struc­tur­ing, in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, and im­proved wa­ter re­source man­age­ment.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les cau­tioned Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of WASA, which he claimed could jeop­ar­dise ac­cess to for­eign fund­ing for projects.

“At the end of the day, they will make not one cent avail­able for you if you can­not show if you have a vi­able trans­for­ma­tion plan to im­prove the wa­ter sup­ply. It is hinged on that. So, when you rip it, you don’t just rip a doc­u­ment, but you rip work that was done not by politi­cians, but work done by tech­nocrats with­in the in­dus­try and stake­hold­ers in the in­dus­try that has the po­ten­tial to tran­scend race, re­li­gion, ge­og­ra­phy, and pol­i­tics.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored

Today's
Guardian

Publications

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

The Executive of the National Parang Association 2025-27. Back row, from left: Kervin Preudhomme, assistant secretary; Shaquille Headley, committee member; Cheriese Pierre, committee member; Lisa Lee, trustee; Joanne Briggs, PRO; Yarelis Touissant, committee member; William Calliste, trustee. Front row, from left: Jenais Carter, secretary; Alicia Jaggasar, president; Henrietta Carter, vice president; Joseph Bertrand, youth officer. Missing: Kerrylee Chee Chow, treasurer; Chevone Pierre, committee member.

Jaggasar returns as National Parang president

11 hours ago
Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Charles Town junior drummers and dancers take to the stage

Jamaican Maroons celebrate, question land rights

11 hours ago
Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford

Sherron Harford’s holistic mission

to transform the lives of girls

Yesterday
Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Despite finding out just three days earlier—on December 23—that I had breast cancer, I still got dressed and showed up on December 26, Boxing Day, for a birthday party. I didn’t go to escape the truth. I went to remind myself I was still here, still living, still me.

Nicole Drayton’s breast cancer journey–Fear, faith, and fighting back

Yesterday