Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to com­pen­sate cit­i­zens whose wash­ing ap­pli­ances and clothes are be­ing dam­aged by “eight days of con­stant dirty wa­ter!”

Gon­za­les made the call yes­ter­day in the lat­est de­vel­op­ment sur­round­ing the dis­coloured wa­ter af­fect­ing ar­eas across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Tak­ing is­sue with re­cent re­spons­es Padarath gave in Par­lia­ment about the prob­lem, in­clud­ing the flush­ing of lines and sed­i­ment is­sues, Gon­za­les ques­tioned why cus­tomers were not warned be­fore­hand.

“There was no record­ed flood­ed riv­er con­di­tions alert is­sued by the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice re­cent­ly due to heavy rain­fall. Ab­solute­ly none! So they didn’t an­tic­i­pate that ‘flush­ing lines’ would have re­sult­ed in this de­ba­cle so as to warn cus­tomers be­fore?”

He al­so ques­tioned whether WASA’s abil­i­ty to pay sup­pli­ers of wa­ter treat­ment chem­i­cals was con­tribut­ing to the prob­lem.

“This scan­dal ex­pos­es the ‘ele­phant in the room’. Is this be­ing caused by WASA’s in­abil­i­ty to pay sup­pli­ers of wa­ter treat­ment chem­i­cals to ad­e­quate­ly treat the coun­try’s wa­ter and those chem­i­cals are not be­ing pro­vid­ed to WASA on a time­ly ba­sis due to non-pay­ment?”

Gon­za­les fur­ther linked the is­sue to the em­ploy­ment of 500 peo­ple, in­creased fees and the ter­mi­na­tion of plant op­er­a­tors.

“Con­nect the dots be­tween the em­ploy­ment of 500 peo­ple (can’t find the mon­ey to meet an ex­pand­ed wage bill), the se­cret rais­ing of fees of up to 700 per cent and they are qui­et­ly ter­mi­nat­ing the em­ploy­ment of Plant Op­er­a­tors at the mo­ment. Stay tuned and I will re­veal the true facts whilst they lie to the na­tion,” he said.

Padarath did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s query about Gon­za­les’s call for com­pen­sa­tion up to press time.