Renu­ka Singh

Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day ar­gued over who was to blame for the poor road con­di­tions in some parts of the coun­try, as the Op­po­si­tion mem­bers blamed the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) while ref­er­enc­ing the protest in Moru­ga ear­li­er in the day.

Dur­ing a sit­ting of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) on the Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said Op­po­si­tion op­er­a­tives were be­hind the protest, which prompt­ed an out­burst by UNC Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh.

Mean­while, the SFC was al­so told that a $45 mil­lion dip in the salaries and Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance (CO­LA) bud­get at WASA should not im­pact op­er­a­tions, but there was no firm fig­ure on what ne­go­ti­a­tions were out­stand­ing.

“The Gov­ern­ment has in­di­cat­ed the pol­i­cy with re­spect to the trans­for­ma­tion and re­struc­tur­ing of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty,” Gon­za­les said.

He said the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee put to­geth­er a re­port which was laid in Par­lia­ment.

“De­spite the short­fall that you are see­ing re­flect­ed here, the trans­for­ma­tion of the WASA would re­sult in an im­prove­ment in wa­ter sup­plies across the coun­try,” he said.

Gon­za­les said over the last 20 years, suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments pumped over $20 bil­lion in­to WASA.

“If by sim­ply pump­ing mon­ey in­to an or­gan­i­sa­tion would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly re­sult in an im­prove­ment in ser­vice, then the $20 bil­lion the gov­ern­ment spent in WASA, then every sin­gle com­mu­ni­ty should be re­ceiv­ing a 24/7 wa­ter sup­ply,” he said.

“De­spite the short­fall you are see­ing here, it will not re­sult in fur­ther de­cline in wa­ter sup­ply,” he said.

The ses­sion last­ed al­most two hours but was plagued by con­tin­u­ous in­ter­rup­tions and crosstalk be­tween mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.

At one point, Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde had to force Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh to with­draw his “put up or shut up” di­rec­tive to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

“Yes­ter­day, I gave an un­der­tak­ing to give the sta­tus of all col­lec­tive agree­ments in all en­ti­ties in the pub­lic sec­tor and that was to pre­empt ques­tions di­rect­ly to oth­er min­is­ters about the same thing over and over,” Im­bert said.

Ques­tions were al­so raised about an un­spent bal­ance of $6 mil­lion un­der the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment head­ing.

“So SWM­COL re­ceived its al­lo­ca­tion from the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and the Min­istry of Fi­nance, it is kept in the ac­counts at SWM­COL and that would be utilised to de­fray any out­stand­ing ex­pense for 2022,” Gon­za­les said.

Im­bert al­so jumped in to clar­i­fy.

“Any mon­ey sent to a State en­ter­prise or statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty, dis­bursed, re­leased and paid to a state en­ter­prise or statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty is re­tained,” he said.

“On the oth­er hand, re­leas­es sent to min­istries that have not been con­vert­ed to a grant or cred­it and then in­to a cheque pay­ment are re­turned to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Ac­count,” he said.