A ma­jor shake-up is ex­pect­ed to take place soon at state-owned Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les moves to make the or­gan­i­sa­tion ef­fi­cient come 2021.

Part of the re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise may lead to job loss­es, a cut in over­time, an over­haul of the man­age­ment, and will in­clude the in­tro­duc­tion of tech­nol­o­gy to de­tect leak­ing pipelines and low wa­ter pres­sure in com­mu­ni­ties.

Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales.

Michael Ramsingh

The dis­clo­sure came from Gon­za­les last week, just days af­ter a de­tailed re­port on WASA’s lin­ger­ing is­sues along with rec­om­men­da­tions to trans­form the be­lea­guered or­gan­i­sa­tion in­to a pro­duc­tive and prof­itable one was sub­mit­ted to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for re­view. For decades, WASA has been plagued with a host of prob­lems that no gov­ern­ment has been able to ad­dress.

In Sep­tem­ber, Row­ley ap­point­ed a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee chaired by Gon­za­les and in­clud­ed min­is­ters Don­na Cox, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Franklin Khan to look in­to the op­er­a­tions of WASA and come up with a com­pre­hen­sive plan to turn around the cash-strapped com­pa­ny.

Gon­za­les, who did not re­veal the con­tent of the re­port, said he was dis­sat­is­fied with WASA’s ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ties, lack of staff ac­count­abil­i­ty, hefty over­time bills, and the mil­lion-dol­lar bonus­es paid out to work­ers. He is al­so un­hap­py that WASA is fac­ing mount­ing debts and a stag­ger­ing $600 mil­lion owed to con­trac­tors which can­not be ac­count­ed for by the au­thor­i­ty.

Gon­za­les, who as­sumed of­fice in Au­gust, said he nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ed WASA to be in such “a bad and chron­ic state.”

He said WASA which was op­er­at­ing on “au­topi­lot”, is “dys­func­tion­al” and in a “cri­sis”.

The min­is­ter said a lot of things tak­ing place at the au­thor­i­ty were “un­ac­cept­able and wor­ry­ing” as pay­ing cus­tomers de­serve a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply.

Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales, left, with WASA officials.

Mis­led by man­ag­er, some not do­ing their jobs

Gon­za­les said he had sol­id ev­i­dence that some of WASA’s man­agers were not do­ing their jobs.

A month ago, Gon­za­les said he asked WASA’s tech­ni­cal staff to find out why Paramin res­i­dents were not re­ceiv­ing wa­ter. First, he was told some is­sues need­ed to be sort­ed out. Then he got a re­port stat­ing that every­thing was OK.

“The last re­port I got was that the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty was get­ting an ef­fi­cient wa­ter sup­ply. But the res­i­dents kept telling me a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, they were still not get­ting wa­ter.”

Re­al­is­ing some­thing was wrong, Gon­za­les said he vis­it­ed Paramin with a WASA man­age­ment team on­ly to find out from res­i­dents that their taps had been dry for weeks.

“In oth­er words, I was be­ing mis­led by the man­age­ment of WASA as to the true sit­u­a­tion tak­ing place on the ground. Can you imag­ine if the Prime Min­is­ter had asked me what was the sit­u­a­tion in Paramin? I would have re­port­ed to him what was re­port­ed to me by se­nior man­age­ment in WASA.”

This, he said, was un­ac­cept­able.

He said some man­agers work­ing in var­i­ous re­gions had not been in­form­ing their boss­es about prob­lems on the ground so cor­rec­tive ac­tion can be tak­en.

Gon­za­les said equal­ly shock­ing was that no dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion had been tak­en against the man­ag­er who had de­ceived him.

Asked if he was in sup­port of work­ers be­ing sus­pend­ed or rep­ri­mand­ed for fail­ing to car­ry out their du­ties, Gon­za­les said he pre­ferred to hold peo­ple ac­count­able for their ac­tions or lack there­of.

“In any se­ri­ous or­gan­i­sa­tion or coun­try, he (man­ag­er) would have been placed on sus­pen­sion al­ready. If you can­not trust the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to you, it paints a very dark pic­ture as to what you are deal­ing with in that or­gan­i­sa­tion. The prob­lem in­side of WASA is bad man­age­ment.”

He said if these is­sues con­tin­ue at WASA “we will on­ly be spin­ning top in mud.”

Gon­za­les said the time had come “to take the bull by its horns.”

Flashback: Customers line up to enter WASA's office in San Fernando, in May.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Man­age­ment op­er­at­ing in si­los

Gon­za­les re­vealed that WASA’s out­dat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture must be re­viewed and stream­lined.

“There are too many lev­els of man­age­ment...there are about sev­en or eight lev­els of man­age­ment which makes it al­most a night­mare to man­age. It’s dif­fi­cult to send in­for­ma­tion down from the top and vice ver­sa be­cause of the var­i­ous lev­els. They all op­er­ate in si­los. There is no in­ter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty.” WASA has 50 man­agers.

As a cit­i­zen, Gon­za­les said he was “very dis­ap­point­ed that such an im­por­tant or­gan­i­sa­tion as WASA had reached to this lev­el where it can­not pro­vide an ef­fi­cient ser­vice to the peo­ple of this coun­try.” He said he was fed up of com­plaints from com­mu­ni­ties, cus­tomers, cit­i­zens, and MPs about WASA’s poor sup­ply.

“From the Prime Min­is­ter straight down. The Prime Min­is­ter has to com­plain to his Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties that there are ar­eas in Care­nage and his con­stituen­cy not get­ting wa­ter. I find that is most em­bar­rass­ing.”

Asked if we can ex­pect a man­age­r­i­al shake-up at WASA soon, Gon­za­les replied,

“There must be a man­age­r­i­al shake-up. It’s im­pos­si­ble to man­age the com­pa­ny with this (cur­rent) man­age­r­i­al struc­ture. It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al.”

Go­ing for­ward, Gon­za­les said work­ers will al­so be grad­ed on their per­for­mance.

Gon­za­les said he has no in­ten­tion of play­ing pol­i­tics with WASA and Pub­lic Ser­vices’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, as all con­stituen­cies have been suf­fer­ing for wa­ter for too long.

“I don’t have time for that. What has to be done will be done.”

Flashback: Dow Village, Balmain and Esperanza residents protest outside the WASA pumping station demanding their communities get a supply of water. Looking on, at right, is Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh.

Shastri Boodan

WASA over­staffed, work­ers must be held ac­count­able

Gon­za­les dis­missed re­ports of WASA be­ing pri­va­tised but ad­mit­ted the or­gan­i­sa­tion is over­staffed. He said WASA’s staff to man­age­ment ra­tio was very high when com­pared to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter com­pa­nies and the mat­ter must be looked in­to.

“I have seen doc­u­ments and a num­ber of re­ports dur­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion that WASA is over­staffed. We have to look at it. All the re­ports point to the fact that WASA is over­staffed.

“But this is some­thing I am cer­tain we will have to look at. It is some­thing you would have to tread on gin­ger­ly, as you are talk­ing about peo­ple’s bread and but­ter.”

Gon­za­les said he knows that work­ers are very con­cerned whether or not they would have their jobs in 2021.

A 2012 re­port com­piled by WASA showed that in an at­tempt to get fund­ing from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank, one con­di­tion­al­i­ty was that the au­thor­i­ty un­der­takes an ur­gent staff ra­tio­nal­i­sa­tion ex­er­cise. This was done by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

Gon­za­les said WASA need­ed to get 2,500 of its 5000 em­ploy­ees out of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. He said 1,000 em­ploy­ees ac­cept­ed VSEP which “cost the peo­ple of this coun­try $400 mil­lion.”

By 2015 how­ev­er, Gon­za­les said, WASA’s work­force re­turned to its orig­i­nal fig­ure of 5,000.

“In my view, WASA has been op­er­at­ing with­out strate­gic guid­ance. If you can get man­age­ment right in WASA to hold peo­ple (work­ers) ac­count­able for their re­spec­tive re­gions, 60 to 70 per cent of the prob­lems at the or­gan­i­sa­tion can be dealt with.

“We have to change the phi­los­o­phy in which we ap­proach the man­age­ment of a crit­i­cal sec­tor like WASA. In this coun­try, if you don’t hold peo­ple ac­count­able it’s ole mas and J’Ou­vert morn­ing every sin­gle day.

“Peo­ple must be held ac­count­able and once you start to go down that road, I can as­sure the peo­ple of T&T you will see an im­prove­ment in your wa­ter sup­ply.”

Il­le­gal con­nec­tions per­va­sive in T&T

Gon­za­les’ vis­it to Paramin al­so un­earthed that sev­er­al res­i­dents had il­le­gal wa­ter con­nec­tions.

“These il­le­gal con­nec­tions have been pre­vent­ing wa­ter from go­ing to le­git­i­mate cus­tomers. Il­le­gal con­nec­tions in the coun­try are very per­va­sive.”

Gon­za­les said he man­dat­ed WASA’s new board head­ed by Dr Lennox Sealy to un­der­take an au­dit of WASA’s le­git­i­mate cus­tomers and iden­ti­fy those who have been il­le­gal­ly ob­tain­ing wa­ter so they can be­come pay­ing cus­tomers.

If they fail to com­ply, they will be dis­con­nect­ed, he added.

“The ev­i­dence is that 40 per cent of the wa­ter WASA pro­duces is not ac­count­ed for as a re­sult of leaks and il­le­gal con­nec­tions which is a loss of rev­enue and wastages tak­ing place.”

WASA pro­duces 220 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly. While WASA los­es mil­lions of gal­lons of wa­ter an­nu­al­ly through age­ing in­fra­struc­ture, Gon­za­les said in­stalling new pipelines would on­ly solve part of the prob­lem.

He said for de­prived com­mu­ni­ties to get a reg­u­lar wa­ter sup­ply WASA has to pro­vide tech­no­log­i­cal and pres­sure man­age­ment sup­port.

“You can put in new lines, but if you do not have prop­er wa­ter pres­sure man­age­ment, the pipes are go­ing to rup­ture.”

He said WASA has to in­vest in tech­nol­o­gy which can in­form its work­ers when there is in­suf­fi­cient wa­ter or too much pres­sure in their sys­tem or a leak­ing pipeline.

WASA’s $90 mil­lion over­time bill

Gon­za­les said in the re­port of the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee, “we have out­lined a work pro­gramme.”

He said the first thing WASA has to do is pro­vide wa­ter to com­mu­ni­ties ac­cord­ing to its sched­ule and re­build cus­tomers’ trust.

“You can come with the biggest plan to trans­form WASA if that plan does not have the re­build­ing of trust, then that plan will go nowhere.”

An­oth­er bug­bear, Gon­za­les said, was WASA’s $90 mil­lion year­ly over­time bill.

Each month, WASA pays $91 mil­lion in wages to its em­ploy­ees.

“And you are spend­ing $8 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in all kinds of bonus­es and al­lowances. Yet still, you are com­plain­ing that you don’t have mon­ey to buy sim­ple plumb­ing tools to do the job. The is­sue is not mon­ey. The is­sue is man­age­ment. $90 mil­lion in over­time is ridicu­lous.”

He said this is­sue stemmed from the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment ne­go­ti­at­ed be­tween the unions and WASA.

“WASA is a 24-hour op­er­a­tion. How can you ne­go­ti­ate a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment on an 8 am to 4 pm work ba­sis?... That any­thing af­ter 4 pm is deemed to be over­time.”

Workers from WASA’s Pipeline Maintenance Department fix a leaking line along Independence Avenue, San Fernando, in May.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Bonus­es not tied to per­for­mance

Gon­za­les said he dis­cov­ered that WASA paid bonus­es to work­ers who did not utilise their sick leave.

“But you don’t have the doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence to sug­gest or to point to the fact that per­son A or B was on the job at a par­tic­u­lar point in time.

“Who pays a bonus for per­sons not tak­ing sick leave?”

He said these bonus­es were not tied to per­for­mances which makes “it a free-for-all at the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

The ques­tion: Should an un­der­per­form­ing state en­ter­prise pay bonus­es to em­ploy­ees?

“If bonus­es are tied to per­for­mances that is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. I am all about sup­port­ing and pay­ing bonus­es to em­ploy­ees who per­form and when there is an im­prove­ment in ser­vices,” Gon­za­les said.

He dis­closed that WASA’s em­ploy­ees re­ceive far bet­ter salaries com­pared to work­ers in the util­i­ty sec­tor.

Over the last decade, he said, the Gov­ern­ment had pumped $21 bil­lion in­to WASA.

“What have we got­ten for $21 bil­lion?” he asked.

WASA re­ceived $1 bil­lion in the 2021 fis­cal pack­age as op­posed to the $1.6 bil­lion it had re­quest­ed.

“A lot of the monies go­ing in­to WASA are not go­ing in­to items that can re­sult in an im­prove­ment of ser­vice to the peo­ple.”

Re­cent­ly, the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) ad­vised that they be­gan a price re­view process for WASA.

The process in­volved three stages with the RIC pub­lish­ing its fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion af­ter re­view­ing all com­ments and con­cerns raised dur­ing pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions.

WASA’s last rate in­crease was in 1993.

Gon­za­les said the role of the RIC is not about in­creas­ing rates but hav­ing bench­marks to en­sure the ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of the util­i­ty ser­vice.

“In look­ing for a tar­iff in­crease for wa­ter in T&T the process en­tails WASA pro­duc­ing a com­pre­hen­sive busi­ness plan to the RIC. So, it is not about get­ting up one morn­ing to raise the rate. The RIC will not ap­prove an in­crease in tar­iff if WASA does not demon­strate how it will im­prove its in­ef­fi­cien­cies. You can­not ask peo­ple of T&T to pay more for wa­ter and that mon­ey will be used to fund in­ef­fi­cien­cies.”

$4 bil­lion in debts, WASA un­able to ver­i­fy $600 mil­lion owed to con­trac­tors

He said the Gov­ern­ment would have to make tough de­ci­sions for WASA to be­come fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able as its debts stood at $4 bil­lion.

“Then we have an­oth­er night­mare with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, near­ly $600 mil­lion of un­record­ed li­a­bil­i­ty, mean­ing that $600 mil­lion in debts owed to con­trac­tors, with WASA not hav­ing the ca­pac­i­ty to ver­i­fy those bills due to mis­man­age­ment. Some of these con­trac­tors have tak­en WASA to court and WASA has been los­ing those mat­ters be­cause the records at WASA can­not sub­stan­ti­ate the debt. It puts WASA at a dis­ad­van­ta­geous po­si­tion.”