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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Brebnor says WASA not serving Tobago well

... clashes with Cabinet members at plant sod turning

by

20 days ago
20250130
THA deputy Chief Secretary Dr Faith Brebnor, from left, Tobago East MP Ayanna Webster-Roy, Planning and Development Minister Pennelope Beckles, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales and Tobago West MP Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis turn the sod at the Goldsborough Water Treatment Plant in Tobago yesterday.

THA deputy Chief Secretary Dr Faith Brebnor, from left, Tobago East MP Ayanna Webster-Roy, Planning and Development Minister Pennelope Beckles, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales and Tobago West MP Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis turn the sod at the Goldsborough Water Treatment Plant in Tobago yesterday.

ELIZABETH GONZALES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Ten­sions flared at the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) Golds­bor­ough Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, when To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor (pre­vi­ous­ly B.Yis­rael) crit­i­cised the state en­ti­ty and Gov­ern­ment over the is­land’s wa­ter is­sues. She al­so raised con­cerns over the THA’s ex­clu­sion from key min­istry events on the is­land.

Cab­i­net mem­bers present—Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Mar­vin Gon­za­les—quick­ly shot back dur­ing their re­marks, dis­miss­ing the fo­cus on in­vi­ta­tions and ac­cus­ing Breb­nor of over­look­ing the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to im­prove To­ba­go’s wa­ter sup­ply. What was sup­posed to be a rou­tine sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny thus quick­ly be­came a fiery po­lit­i­cal show­down in front of in­vit­ed guests and res­i­dents, with no one hold­ing back on their crit­i­cisms.

Breb­nor first called out the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing, “I sin­cere­ly hope that this kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion—one where I am in­vit­ed to be a part of the cel­e­bra­tion—is not just hap­pen­ing be­cause we were forced to do it.”

Shift­ing her at­ten­tion to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, she added, “In oth­er words, Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, I’m look­ing for the oth­er in­vi­ta­tions.”

She then raised is­sues about wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty across the is­land, even in ar­eas with mod­ern in­fra­struc­ture.

“I get the calls all the time from peo­ple who are say­ing to me, ‘Call WASA, it’s three days now, we haven’t got­ten wa­ter.’ The chal­lenge is not just for res­i­dents; it ex­tends to farm­ers who are in the area, since Golds­bor­ough is the food bas­ket of To­ba­go.”

Her re­marks, how­ev­er, trig­gered a force­ful re­sponse from the Cab­i­net mem­bers present.

To­ba­go East MP Web­ster-Roy aban­doned her pre­pared speech to fire back.

“My very ho­n­ourable col­league from the THA al­so men­tioned parts of the THA Act of 1996, but I wish that same pas­sion would have been shared when we were de­bat­ing the two au­ton­o­my bills,” Web­ster-Roy said in ref­er­ence to the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, 2020 that was de­feat­ed in Par­lia­ment in De­cem­ber. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Beck­les-Robin­son al­so de­fend­ed Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to fix the wa­ter cri­sis in To­ba­go.

“Things will nev­er be per­fect be­cause very of­ten the im­pres­sion is giv­en that all the mon­ey is spent in Trinidad. Come to Ari­ma, and they will not say so. Go to Lopinot, and they will not say so,” Beck­les-Robin­son said.

“The col­lab­o­ra­tion al­ways ex­ist­ed. I was a for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, and in 2002, there was a short­age of wa­ter in To­ba­go, and we had to im­port wa­ter from Trinidad. Dur­ing 2002-2004, for­mer chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don made the re­quest, and $30 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed from the min­istry to drill wells in To­ba­go, and that is why there isn’t the short­age of wa­ter now as com­pared to then.”

But it was Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gon­za­les who made it clear he has nev­er been in­vit­ed to any THA events by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He charged, “I’m not about that. I’m a big man, I have work to do. I’m not about mak­ing an is­sue over who gets an in­vi­ta­tion, who doesn’t. I’m about serv­ing the peo­ple who put me in of­fice, and when elec­tion comes, they’re not go­ing to de­ter­mine my po­lit­i­cal fu­ture by who I in­vite or who I didn’t in­vite.”

He called on To­bag­o­ni­ans not to tol­er­ate politi­cians who try to score points off the is­sue.

“Watch them care­ful­ly, how they con­duct them­selves when you put your trust in them, ask them to ac­count for what they have done, es­pe­cial­ly those who promised to fix things and are on­ly fix­ing them­selves.”

He con­demned Breb­nor’s com­ments, say­ing his min­istry has sent in­vi­ta­tions to events that were nev­er ac­knowl­edged or at­tend­ed by THA ex­ec­u­tives.

“I will for­give her (Breb­nor) be­cause, per­haps, she wasn’t aware that on many oc­ca­sions when we com­mis­sioned boost­er sta­tions and in­fra­struc­ture, the sec­re­tary re­spon­si­ble for util­i­ties (Sec­re­tary Ian Pol­lard) re­fused to at­tend.”

He al­so said the de­liv­ery of wa­ter to cit­i­zens should not be politi­cised, telling the au­di­ence, “Any min­is­ter or politi­cian that gets in­volved in the politi­ci­sa­tion of wa­ter is one that is un­de­serv­ing of your trust and rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

Gon­za­les, like Beck­les, said To­ba­go’s wa­ter sit­u­a­tion is bet­ter to­day than it was years ago. He de­nied ex­clud­ing the THA from ac­tiv­i­ties, say­ing re­cent­ly the Chief Sec­re­tary was a guest speak­er at a re­cent event in Char­lot­teville.

He said his min­istry had al­ready poured $77 mil­lion in­to im­prov­ing To­ba­go’s wa­ter sup­ply and plans to take that in­vest­ment up to $181 mil­lion with up­com­ing projects. The wa­ter treat­ment plant is ex­pect­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50 mil­lion.


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