Be­fore any move is made to change wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates, the gov­ern­ment must in­di­cate what price T&TEC is pay­ing for gas from the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny.

So said Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath dur­ing the UNC’s press con­fer­ence held yes­ter­day.

Padarath said it ap­peared that the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion was be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed by the gov­ern­ment.

“The gov­ern­ment must say whether they have re­moved in whole or in part the gas sub­sidy. Gas is sold to TTEC and ne­go­ti­at­ed through NGC that would in­form new prices,” he said.

He added, “The RIC must say why they have made no al­lo­ca­tions for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions. They must not use the SoE and COVID reg­u­la­tions to sti­fle the views of cit­i­zens.”

Padarath al­so al­leged that on­line con­sul­ta­tions were a farce.

“Gov­ern­ment will use its heavy hand to si­lence peo­ple by en­sur­ing they don’t par­tic­i­pate in pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions. This thing about send­ing your emails and mes­sages will not work. The Gov­ern­ment is us­ing COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion as an ex­cuse not to give a voice to the peo­ple of T&T,” he added.

Padarath al­so ques­tioned the rea­son for ma­jor cuts to WASA.

“$232 mil­lion was cut for con­tract em­ploy­ment, $100 mil­lion for ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies? Is it to emas­cu­late and de­mo­nize WASA for pri­va­ti­za­tion to friends, fam­i­lies and fi­nanciers?” he added.

He re­it­er­at­ed, “The RIC must not be ma­nip­u­lat­ed by gov­ern­ment and must ful­fil their statu­to­ry oblig­a­tion to hold pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions. Part of the process is to eval­u­ate the sat­is­fac­tion of the ser­vice. With mas­sive cuts to WASA this year and the prob­lems at both WASA and T&TEC is it an at­tempt to fur­ther de­mo­nize these in­sti­tu­tions.”

Padarath al­so said the gov­ern­ment must say whether TTEC is bank­rupt.

“They cur­rent­ly owe NGC bil­lions of dol­lars and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter in Feb­ru­ary said they took a $5 bil­lion loan to put in NGC books as it re­lates to the debt T&TEC owes NGC. How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter did not say that the debt is writ­ten off. There­by leav­ing T&TEC with the bil­lions they owe,” Padarath added.

He said peo­ple across the coun­try were suf­fer­ing for wa­ter par­tic­u­lar­ly in South and Cen­tral Trinidad, not­ing that the RIC must en­sure that they con­sult with the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.