Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has chal­lenged Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath to drink a glass of the same brown wa­ter flow­ing from af­fect­ed house­hold taps, ques­tion­ing the min­is­ter’s as­sur­ance that the dis­coloured sup­ply is safe for do­mes­tic use.

In a so­cial me­dia post yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les called on Padarath to pub­licly demon­strate his con­fi­dence in the wa­ter be­ing sup­plied by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), af­ter the min­is­ter told Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day that the wa­ter re­mained safe for use.

“Stand be­fore the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Show them a glass of that same brown, dirty wa­ter flow­ing through their taps and tell us whether you would drink it or serve it to your chil­dren,” Gon­za­les said.

He stressed that he was re­fer­ring to the same wa­ter be­ing sup­plied to res­i­dents, not bot­tled or spe­cial­ly treat­ed wa­ter.

Padarath quick­ly ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge, invit­ing Gon­za­les to name the date, time and place for them to drink a glass of WASA-sup­plied wa­ter to­geth­er.

In a so­cial me­dia state­ment, Padarath said dis­coloured wa­ter was not un­usu­al and had al­so af­fect­ed con­sumers un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“While we con­tin­ue to work with WASA as­sid­u­ous­ly to mit­i­gate the im­pact of dis­coloured wa­ter af­fect­ing some parts of Trinidad, this is not an un­usu­al oc­cur­rence. It has hap­pened be­fore, es­pe­cial­ly un­der PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said.

Padarath point­ed to a 2009 WASA ad­vi­so­ry re­port­ed by the Trinidad Guardian, as well as re­ports of dis­coloured wa­ter in parts of Trinidad in 2022 and 2023. He not­ed that Gon­za­les, who pre­vi­ous­ly held re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for WASA, had not chal­lenged sim­i­lar pub­lic ad­vi­sories dur­ing his tenure.

“The for­mer min­is­ter nev­er dis­put­ed it. He stood by the da­ta and the in­for­ma­tion placed in the pub­lic do­main as the line min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for WASA,” Padarath said.

Re­spond­ing di­rect­ly to Gon­za­les, he added: “Name the date, name the time, name the place, and we’ll be able to knock glass for a glass of pipe-borne wa­ter com­ing from WASA.”

The min­is­ter al­so ac­cused Gon­za­les of at­tempt­ing to score po­lit­i­cal points over an is­sue that had arisen un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“It hap­pened un­der your tenure. You had not a word to say about it at that time. But you want to try out a chal­lenge to me? I in­vite you, join me for a glass of the wa­ter,” he said.

Padarath re­it­er­at­ed: “Name the date, the time and the place, I’ll be there.”

Mean­while, Gon­za­les ques­tioned the sci­en­tif­ic ba­sis for the Gov­ern­ment’s as­sur­ances and called for the re­lease of wa­ter-qual­i­ty test re­sults.

“Where are the wa­ter qual­i­ty test re­sults? What sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence sup­ports your as­sur­ances, Min­is­ter? And when will this cri­sis end?” he asked.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Padarath said tem­po­rary dis­coloura­tion re­sult­ed from ad­just­ments to the trans­mis­sion sys­tem af­ter the De­sal­cott plant went back on stream fol­low­ing a sched­uled shut­down for main­te­nance and the sub­se­quent restora­tion of nor­mal wa­ter pres­sure, which dis­turbed sed­i­ment with­in sec­tions of the net­work.

“WASA im­me­di­ate­ly com­menced flush­ing op­er­a­tions in the af­fect­ed ar­eas and they have ad­vised the pub­lic that the wa­ter re­mains safe for do­mes­tic use,” he said.

Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of a pri­vate mo­tion he brought in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day on dis­rup­tions to the na­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply.

He said he made a 45-minute con­tri­bu­tion and for­mal­ly moved the mo­tion but claimed de­bate was ef­fec­tive­ly halt­ed be­cause of the Speak­er’s in­ter­ven­tion and the Gov­ern­ment’s par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty.

“Cit­i­zens are de­mand­ing clean wa­ter, and this gov­ern­ment is busy us­ing its ma­jor­i­ty to shut down par­lia­men­tary de­bate about wa­ter,” he said.

Gon­za­les again called on Padarath to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the sit­u­a­tion and re­sign, ar­gu­ing that cit­i­zens de­served clean wa­ter, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“Clean wa­ter is not a po­lit­i­cal favour. It is a ba­sic ne­ces­si­ty. And the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serve clean wa­ter, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said.