After years of being accused of destroying the nation’s roadways, cash-strapped Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) will be bringing on board a contingent of small paving contractors to carry out road repairs across the country.
The paving exercise, according to Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, will bring about road improvements in the coming weeks.
WASA is often blamed by communities and motorists for leaving roads in deplorable conditions after laying or repairing a pipeline.
The repaving is one of the measures, Gonzales said, WASA will roll out as they seek to provide better delivery of service to its customers and the population on the cusp of its transformation plan.
Speaking to Guardian Media at his St Clair office, Gonzales spoke of the initiatives the cash-strapped, State-owned company will undertake in the coming months.
Among the plans in the pipeline are undertaking water audits, increasing its water volumes and teaming up with a Canadian firm to streamline WASA into a technologically driven company so it can become self-sufficient and financially viable. While the task to bring about change has been causing Gonzales sleepless nights he admitted “the biggest challenge I have in this plan is to turn around hearts and minds by the workers of WASA.”
In the last few months, Gonzales admitted that WASA has conducted sporadic water audits in some areas. One area he identified was Tucker Valley, Chaguaramas, after residents in Glencoe, Carenage, Four Roads and Westvale began experiencing water shortages.
The complaint surfaced after WASA had spent $6 million to upgrade its Tucker Valley Water Treatment Plant some weeks before. The plant produces four million gallons of water daily.
Gonzales asked WASA’s Board to get an independent team of engineers and hydraulic experts to investigate why some communities were not receiving water.
“What we recognised there was a grave water imbalance. We also discovered some anomalies in the system.”
The investigating unit unearthed water theft by a few companies who Gonzales said were “being favoured” over residential customers.
He said approximately one million gallons of water could not be accounted for. While customers’ taps remained dry, Gonzales said the companies were “utilising special pumps to extract water from (WASA’s) transmission system” to support their businesses. He said WASA’s water was being stolen.
“These are the things that have been happening on WASA’s distribution network...because of the absence of technology where these things cannot be easily detected you find a lot of people are engaged in all kinds of nefarious practices to get water to the detriment of paying customers.”
Gonzales said WASA ordered the companies to remove the pumps and the communities began receiving water again. The same incident, Gonzales said, also took place at River Estate. Gonzales could not say how much water is siphoned or stolen from WASA daily. While WASA claims to produce 240 million gallons of water daily, Gonzales said, this figure cannot be relied on.
“If you don’t have flow meters measuring the amount of water coming out of the plants, then what is your assertion that you are producing that amount. If you cannot measure the water, then you cannot manage it.”
The key to WASA’s improvement, Gonzales said, is for the utility company to become technology-driven and self-sufficient. Based on the population’s water consumption, Gonzales said, between 40 to 50 per cent of WASA’s water is wasted.
“Yes, we do have a leak problem on its transmission and distribution network. But I hardly doubt that the leak problem is so pervasive that you are actually losing half of the water you are producing.”
Water is also stolen via illegal connections. Gonzales said WASA is unable to tell how many people have illegal connections.
“If you don’t have accurate data then what is going to happen, as happened on previous occasions, you would have seen billions of dollars being spent in WASA to pursue projects that did not reach down to the benefit of customers. This is certainly not going to happen under my watch.”
In the last four months, Gonzales said a leak management programme was introduced, resulting in the repair of 6,000 ruptured pipelines. WASA still has an outstanding 3,000 leaks to fix in northwest, northeast, central, south and Tobago.
1,200 of these leaks are located in northwest and northeast Trinidad. The leaks were repaired by WASA in house staff and small contractors retained by WASA.
“By the end of April WASA would be in a position to respond to report of leaks within 24 to 48 hours for the most because we will be wiping out that 3,000 leaks next month.”
The backlog of almost 10,000 leaks was attributed to a number of factors, Gonzales said, among them were lack of equipment and WASA’s slow procurement process. WASA has 46 leak repair crews. Each gang has seven to eight workers who now have to account for the number of leaks fixed each week.
“When we asked for information with respect to the number of leaks that they (crews) are repairing on a daily basis you would be shocked to know that in many instances if they had repaired 50 or 40 leaks per week they would have been doing quite a lot.”
Since hiring the contractors, Gonzales said, WASA has seen a significant leak reduction. The contractors work around the clock and are not circumscribed by some of the challenges inside of WASA as it relates to its collective bargaining agreement with employees.
Every Monday, managers in charge of the crews have to provide WASA’s directors with a list of leaks repaired the week before.
“So they have to account.”
While WASA has been reducing its leaks, Gonzales said, the roads are left in a deplorable state after installing or patching a ruptured pipeline. “I inherited a situation where there is about 15,000 to 16,000 outstanding road restoration to be done in T&T. So it meant that WASA was doing leak repairs without restoring the roads.”
This, he said, will soon be solved.
“In about two to three weeks’ time in every region, we are going to hire experienced road paving contractors and we are going to deploy them in every region to cut down on that backlog so the population will soon see an improvement in the quality of roads across the country.”
Only contractors registered with WASA will be allowed to tender for the road paving jobs. Gonzales said it is WASA’s responsibility to repave a road after undertaking works. The ministry was allocated $16 million in the 2022 budget for road restoration.
Asked if this figure will be sufficient to deal with the number of areas that have to be repaved, Gonzales said” it will be sufficient. We’ve done some original estimates and we believe the $16 million allocation will be used across the board.”
However, Gonzales said, if there is a need for additional funding he will speak to Finance Minister Colm Imbert. He also disclosed that Cabinet recently approved $60 million for a water improvement programme in north-west Trinidad which would boost water supply in Laventille, Diego Martin, Maraval, San Juan, Santa Cruz and other areas.
“We are going to improve and modernise the entire water transmission and distribution system.”
Gonzales said in many communities millions of dollars in pipelines were installed between 2010 and 2014 but people are still without water.
“These pipelines were never connected. Not a drop of water passed through them.”
He said it was unacceptable for communities to remain unserved or underserved.
As WASA moves to restructure and improve its service, Gonzales said, technocrats at his ministry developed a 65-page strategic action plan which Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Cabinet approved two weeks ago. The plan outlines short and medium-term solutions to transform WASA, expand its water resources, optimise network performance and automate its systems.
Gonzales also admitted that WASA has teamed up with a Canadian firm that will offer its expertise in the setting up of seven modular treatment plants across the country and transform WASA into a technology-driven company.
“Very soon we will be approaching Cabinet to get the approval to sign an MOU with the Government of Canada and that MOU will see some strategic partnerships in the utility sector with the Canadians and more so it will allow us to import the various technologies from the modular treatment plants.”
The foreign company will also conduct a water audit across WASA’s water distribution grid, utilising consultants. Only 34 per cent of the population receive a 24/7 water supply in their taps.
By the end of 2023, Gonzales said, WASA should be in a position to increase its water distribution from 240 to 280 million gallons daily with the implementation of its new water treatment plants, development of wells and rain harvesting.
Where will the money come from to turn around the beleaguered company?
“I can tell you that a CAF mission is going to be visiting a team from the ministry and WASA tomorrow. They will look at this strategic action plan that we have put together and a capital investment programme for the next three to four years.”
The CAF delegation will also visit WASA’s plants and give the ministry its feedback in a few weeks regarding what kind of support they can offer.
“We are also speaking to the IDB and we will continue to have discussions with the Ministry of Finance to identify the possibility of getting funding assistance from various sources that might be available to us.”
Gonzales said WASA is also focusing on increasing its tariffs to generate revenue.
He said WASA has been working on a business plan which will be submitted to the Regulated Industries Commission (RIC) as they seek to increase its water rates.
“The plans must demonstrate to the RIC what WASA will improve their levels of service and to justify that rate increase. So by the time the tariff review is completed in the next 18 months the areas that are underserviced or receiving poor water supply would be improved...thereby making a tariff review more acceptable to the population.”
Admitting that WASA’s current state of affairs cannot continue, Gonzales said, the company’s aim is to not lean on the Government for financial support but to stand on its own.
“I don’t wish for any project or programme to be undermined by corruption, by cost overruns and not seeing an improvement in the delivery of service.”
Gonzales gave the assurance that the errors of the past will not be repeated “and that every dollar that is spent or invested in the water network and WASA will be to the benefit of the citizens.”