For­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les isn’t sur­prised or both­ered that his trans­for­ma­tion plan for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been gut­ted. How­ev­er, he is pre­dict­ing it will lead to cor­rup­tion.

Gon­za­les made the com­ment af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounced that WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion plan had been scrapped dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day at the Red House, Port-of-Spain.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone, Gon­za­les said his plan was to have a new struc­ture for the state en­ter­prise, which in­clud­ed a 40 per cent staff re­duc­tion.

He said, “I am not both­ered by it (scrapped plan). Wait and you will see the true out­come of it. It’s back to the old days of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment be­tween some union lead­ers and politi­cians... She’s (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) a liar.

“We ap­proved a new struc­ture that would have even­tu­al­ly re­duced the size of the man­age­ment of WASA by 40 per cent and the new ex­ec­u­tive team which they have now dis­man­tled was to en­sure that the new struc­ture was im­ple­ment­ed.”

Gon­za­les, per­haps fore­see­ing the move, took to so­cial me­dia be­fore the post-Cab­i­net meet­ing to warn that the re­struc­tur­ing at WASA was at risk of be­ing dis­man­tled.

He al­so claimed that hard-won gains in wa­ter ser­vice de­liv­ery to the pub­lic would al­so be re­versed.

Gon­za­les’ crit­i­cism fol­lowed the res­ig­na­tion of nine WASA board mem­bers, a move Padarath said was stan­dard prac­tice when a new ad­min­is­tra­tion is in­stalled.

Gon­za­les said, “The trans­for­ma­tion process at WASA will be gut­ted and the im­prove­ments made to en­hance the cit­i­zens’ wa­ter sup­ply will be re­versed. This hap­pens be­cause par­ty in­ter­ests take prece­dence over the coun­try’s needs.”

A few hours lat­er, af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the new Cab­i­net’s move, Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste, a for­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent, ac­cused Gon­za­les of ly­ing about WASA hav­ing over 400 man­agers.

Bap­tiste said, “Four hun­dred and twen­ty-six man­agers, you be­lieve that? That does not ex­ist. What he did was mis­rep­re­sent­ed to the coun­try as facts, a lie. They went in­to the bar­gain­ing unit ju­nior po­si­tions and called it man­agers and in their de­mon­i­sa­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, tried to por­tray it as though there’s 426 peo­ple man­ag­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion. That was a lie. It nev­er ex­ist­ed.

“What has been un­earthed is that he has cre­at­ed a su­per top-heavy struc­ture of the man­age­ment with su­per salaries.”

In re­sponse to this, Gon­za­les lat­er told Guardian Me­dia, “When the re­port was laid in 2021 in par­lia­ment, why didn’t he say so?”

More union push­back al­so came from PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, who was al­so at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing. She said this move will al­low for WASA work­ers to have a sense of re­lief.

Thomas said, “On be­half of the work­ers of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, we thank this Gov­ern­ment for once more mak­ing the jobs of pub­lic of­fi­cers se­cure and for the up­com­ing pe­ri­od, we can rest, we can be hap­py, we can plan our lives as work­ers in the coun­try. We look for­ward to work­ing with this Gov­ern­ment to im­prove the wa­ter sup­ply to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Thomas and the PSA were al­so praised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar for “stand­ing their ground.”

On March 29, Thomas had sur­prised many by ap­pear­ing on a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to en­dorse the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ward­ed her by pre­sent­ing her with the ripped-up for­mer PNM WASA trans­for­ma­tion pol­i­cy, telling her “to throw it in the dust­bin.”