SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The suf­fer­ing of more than 5,000 res­i­dents in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Morne Di­a­blo has come to an end as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has blown the lid off a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar wa­ter truck­ing rack­et.

The res­i­dents, who have been forced to pur­chase wa­ter for $300 a truck­load—fork­ing out be­tween $600 and $1,800 per house­hold per month—are breath­ing a sigh of re­lief as they are now be­ing pro­vid­ed with a free sup­ply dai­ly from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), while Gov­ern­ment is al­so work­ing apace to com­plete in­stal­la­tion of 2.4 kilo­me­tres of pipelines in the dis­trict by month end.

Un­scrupu­lous pri­vate op­er­a­tors, they claimed, were de­lib­er­ate­ly lock­ing off WASA’s valves to force them to buy the es­sen­tial com­mod­i­ty. Sun­day Guardian was told that the mas­ter­mind be­hind the il­le­gal op­er­a­tion, which ex­ist­ed for more than a decade, is a for­mer WASA work­er called a turn­cock who turns the wa­ter sup­ply on and off in the mains.

Res­i­dents com­plained that at least 30 truck dri­vers had been ex­tract­ing wa­ter from the com­mu­ni­ty’s two wells on Scott Road that pro­duce 160,000 gal­lons dai­ly and sell­ing it to them for $300 a truck­load. A truck­load of wa­ter varies from 800 to 1,000 gal­lons. The house­holds pur­chased be­tween two and six tanks of wa­ter per month based on their needs.

How­ev­er, res­i­dents claimed they were nev­er pro­vid­ed with re­ceipts from the sup­pli­ers of the wa­ter. Mean­while, they con­tin­ued to re­ceive bills from WASA with­out fail.

Min­is­ter Gon­za­les was left in shock at the Morne Di­a­blo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre last week­end when Ur­su­line Nel­son-Williams and oth­er frus­trat­ed res­i­dents from among the 500 house­holds re­vealed how the rack­et op­er­at­ed.

“One sales­man (dri­ver) says ... he tes­ti­fied to this, that he mak­ing $4,000 to $5,000 a day. When I cal­cu­late that, boy, that is rob­bery with vi­o­lence,” a res­i­dent said.

“He rob­bing WASA and he rob­bing me be­cause we pay­ing tax mon­ey, we pay­ing WASA bills, and we still pay­ing $300.

“He mak­ing a lot of mon­ey and he is on­ly one (dri­ver).” Nel­son-Williams said she can on­ly imag­ine what the dri­vers earn for the year.

Ac­cord­ing to cal­cu­la­tions, this sup­pli­er can earn be­tween $92,000 and $115,000 a month and be­tween $1 mil­lion and $1.4 mil­lion a year. The el­der­ly woman said she feared be­ing tar­get­ed or chased by the dri­vers with their trucks, but added that she knows what it is like to catch hell for wa­ter.

Res­i­dent Ajit Bal­go­b­in felt it would be dif­fi­cult to clamp down on the dri­vers be­cause they have been re­lent­less in their op­er­a­tions.

“Noth­ing is go­ing to stop them from do­ing the same thing be­cause we braced one of the truck men, and you know what he said, how they go live. So this is a way of life for them. You could run ten mil­lion lines, they will find a way to tap in­to it and lock off the wa­ter.”

Bal­go­b­in said while res­i­dents can make a cit­i­zen’s ar­rest, they would be putting them­selves at risk. “Most of these men, they have guns. No, I am se­ri­ous, they have guns. And if this is a way of life they will find a way to pro­tect their way of life,” a res­i­dent added.

Res­i­dent Avyien Paul al­so voiced her dis­plea­sure, point­ing out they were tak­en ad­van­tage of for too long.

“Buy­ing the wa­ter was dif­fi­cult be­cause I have no hus­band. There was a time in three weeks it cost me $900. I was up­set, but I didn’t have a choice.”

WASA work­ers com­plic­it

Gon­za­les said he was per­plexed that a small group of men had “ac­cess to this wa­ter sup­ply, had it stored in large tanks, in­vest­ed in wa­ter trucks and pre­vent­ed the wa­ter from reach­ing you, and then tak­ing the same wa­ter and sell­ing it to you all.

“How come these peo­ple not in jail? How come these peo­ple have been al­lowed to get away with bla­tant in­jus­tices like that?

“Cal­cu­late how much mon­ey you would have spent over the last ten years. You are talk­ing about mil­lions of dol­lars. It’s a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar rack­et that is tak­ing place.”

De­spite WASA’s heavy in­vest­ments in equip­ment and sup­plies to im­prove the cit­i­zens’ wa­ter sup­ply, Gon­za­les said, some peo­ple have been sab­o­tag­ing the au­thor­i­ty’s in­fra­struc­ture.

“And that could not have hap­pened with­out the sup­port of peo­ple with­in the au­thor­i­ty.”

He said while there are good work­ers in WASA, oth­ers are “aligned with peo­ple on the out­side to main­tain a sta­tus quo be­cause they are get­ting the kick­backs some­where be­hind.”

Gon­za­les added, “So when a com­mu­ni­ty does not have wa­ter, it means some­body is mak­ing mon­ey.

“And if you fix that prob­lem, then it means that some­body might go out of busi­ness. Al­so, if you fix the prob­lem, you bet­ter be care­ful!”

He told the Sun­day Guardian that an ac­cu­mu­la­tion of WASA’s wa­ter and its sale is an of­fence.

How­ev­er, he said, the fine for this il­le­gal act is a min­i­mal $75, which needs re­view to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in this mat­ter.

How the min­istry is tack­ling the is­sue

Ad­dress­ing res­i­dents, Gon­za­les ad­mit­ted the il­le­gal op­er­a­tion an­gered him, as no com­mu­ni­ty de­served to be ex­ploit­ed by rack­e­teers whom he de­scribed as evil and rep­re­hen­si­ble.

Gon­za­les, who brought the mat­ter to the at­ten­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said he could not un­der­stand why this scam was al­lowed to ex­ist for so long.

He said now that the lid has been blown and mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to stop the rack­et, the res­i­dents would have to brace for “sab­o­tage” of WASA’s in­fra­struc­ture.

• To stop the dri­vers in their tracks, res­i­dents are be­ing pro­vid­ed with a dai­ly truck-borne sup­ply.

• WASA is in­stalling 2.4 kilo­me­tres of pipelines in the low­er end of the dis­trict, util­is­ing con­trac­tor Bri­an Con­tract­ing Ser­vices. The $2.3 mil­lion pipe-lay­ing project would bring wa­ter to their taps by the end of the month.

• WASA has al­so in­stalled valves equipped with alarms and log­gers to no­ti­fy the au­thor­i­ty of any tam­per­ing.