Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is promis­ing re­lief to cit­i­zens who are fac­ing wa­ter woes due to the re­cent dry sea­son wa­ter sup­ply sched­ule.

Speak­ing at the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Chatham Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant re­fur­bish­ment project—his first pub­lic event since as­sum­ing his new port­fo­lio—the min­is­ter, be­fore speak­ing about the sched­ule, asked WASA’s CEO and oth­er of­fi­cials to take note of what he was about to say.

Ad­vis­ing that he had tak­en note of WASA’s re­cent­ly pub­lished dry sea­son wa­ter sup­ply sched­ule, which was de­vel­oped be­fore he as­sumed his port­fo­lio, Im­bert said as an MP he had re­ceived crit­i­cal com­ments on it from his con­stituents in Diego Mar­tin North/East and the wider pop­u­la­tion.

“And while I ap­pre­ci­ate the con­straints that WASA is work­ing un­der, I wish to as­sure all cit­i­zens that I in­tend to sit down with WASA in the very near fu­ture, and dis­cuss ways and means to make the dry sea­son sched­ule more tol­er­a­ble and bet­ter for con­cerned,” said the min­is­ter.

The for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter said he was ex­cit­ed about his new port­fo­lio, as his new re­spon­si­bil­i­ty gave him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to deal with a very im­por­tant area of na­tion­al ser­vice de­liv­ery — wa­ter sup­ply.

Not­ing that he had spent the last ten years in ad­min­is­tra­tion, he said, “I am so hap­py now to get out in the field, touch peo­ple.”

In­ter­viewed by re­porters af­ter­wards, Im­bert said wa­ter sup­ply had been the biggest prob­lem he had to deal with in his con­stituen­cy in the last 33 years, so he is hap­py to be able to deal with wa­ter sup­ply is­sues across the coun­try.

While he is still set­tling in­to his new port­fo­lio, the min­is­ter said he has start­ed look­ing at WASA in de­tail be­cause, in his opin­ion, that was the area that need­ed the great­est im­prove­ment and work.

With re­gards to rate in­creas­es, the min­is­ter said that was a long process and would not be done any­time soon, even if the PNM Gov­ern­ment was suc­cess­ful at the polls.

“My un­der­stand­ing is that WASA’s ap­pli­ca­tion to the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion is not yet com­plete so pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions have not yet been held so that is a long way from now,” said the min­is­ter.

In his ad­dress, Im­bert said the Chatham Plant was over four decades in op­er­a­tion and with age­ing fa­cil­i­ties, had fall­en short of its cur­rent de­mand and ef­fi­cien­cy.

When com­plet­ed, he said, the plant would be work­ing at full ca­pac­i­ty, pro­duc­ing three mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly, ben­e­fit­ing over 7,000 house­holds and 23,000 res­i­dents.

Com­mend­ing his pre­de­ces­sor for un­der­tak­ing sev­er­al wa­ter im­prove­ment projects in south Trinidad, the min­is­ter said in the com­ing weeks WASA would com­mence works on a new pipeline to bring pipe-borne wa­ter for the first time to 3,000 peo­ple at a cost of $8 mil­lion.

Not­ing that South­west Wa­ter Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme be­gan in 2021, in­cum­bent Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards Jr said the Gov­ern­ment had spent over $100 mil­lion to im­prove the sup­ply and even the fur­thest point, Ica­cos Vil­lage has been re­ceiv­ing wa­ter.

Boast­ing that the “South­west has got­ten its fair share of the WASA pie,” in­cum­bent La Brea MP Stephen Mc Clashie not­ed that some com­mu­ni­ties were now re­ceiv­ing wa­ter for the first time in 25 to 30 years.

How­ev­er, he said res­i­dents in the Los Charos and Sobo ar­eas were still ex­pe­ri­enc­ing wa­ter woes.

The Chatham project, which is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in Au­gust, is be­ing fund­ed through a ten-year US$315 loan arrange­ment that the Gov­ern­ment had en­tered in­to with the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank in March 2023 for a con­di­tion­al cred­it line for in­vest­ment projects.