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Monday, March 17, 2025

MPs argue over who to blame for poor road conditions

by

Renuka Singh
1251 days ago
20211012
Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales.

Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales.

Parliament of T&T

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.


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