Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age of­fered to Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer des­ig­nate of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), in­cludes a $100,000 month­ly salary, $8,000 month­ly hous­ing al­lowance, a com­pa­ny ve­hi­cle, en­ter­tain­ment al­lowance, and oth­er perks, plus a per­for­mance in­cen­tive bonus on at­tain­ing all tar­gets.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­tailed the pack­age in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, re­ply­ing to UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath’s call for in­for­ma­tion on it.

Gon­za­les said, “The chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) des­ig­nate of the (WASA), Mr Hal­l­i­day, would be re­quired, in­ter alia, to lead the trans­for­ma­tion of the au­thor­i­ty, which is a sig­nif­i­cant un­der­tak­ing. To at­tract and re­tain a high cal­i­bre and high­ly com­pe­tent in­cum­bent in the hy­per-com­pet­i­tive job mar­ket for such a task, a com­pet­i­tive salary and ben­e­fit pack­age, in­clud­ing per­for­mance-based in­cen­tives, are cru­cial.”

He said “the re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age re­flects mar­ket com­pet­i­tive­ness, and in­cludes per­for­mance-based in­cen­tives.”

• Salary: At the rate of $100,000 per month;

• Hous­ing: A hous­ing al­lowance of $8,000 per month;

• Trans­port Fa­cil­i­ty: A ful­ly main­tained com­pa­ny mo­tor ve­hi­cle not ex­ceed­ing a val­ue of $400,000 (ex­clu­sive of VAT) for busi­ness and per­son­al use for the du­ra­tion of the con­tract.

• En­ter­tain­ment Al­lowance: Re­im­burse­ment of rea­son­able en­ter­tain­ment ex­pens­es in­curred in the con­duct of busi­ness-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties on be­half of WASA, to a max­i­mum of $2,300 per month.

• Tele­phone: Where a cel­lu­lar phone is pro­vid­ed, the re­im­burse­ment of up to a max­i­mum of $1,000 per month on cel­lu­lar bills (in­clud­ing ac­cess charges where ap­plic­a­ble);

• El­i­gi­bil­i­ty to reg­is­ter for mem­ber­ship in the au­thor­i­ty’s med­ical in­sur­ance plan. Any en­roll­ment of the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer’s de­pen­dents in the plan shall be at the full cost of the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer;

• Gra­tu­ity: Twen­ty per cent of gross salary earned over the pe­ri­od of em­ploy­ment, payable on sat­is­fac­to­ry com­ple­tion of the term of en­gage­ment: such pay­ment is to be sub­ject to de­duc­tions for tax pur­pos­es. (The term ‘gross salary’ ex­cludes al­lowances.)

• Per­for­mance In­cen­tive Bonus: An an­nu­al bonus payable on the at­tain­ment of 100 per cent of the per­for­mance tar­gets. The bonus to be paid should be lim­it­ed to six months’ salary for the first year of the con­tract pe­ri­od. The bonus to be paid should be lim­it­ed to four months’ salary for the sec­ond and third years of the con­tract pe­ri­od.

Gon­za­les said the com­pen­sa­tion pack­age of­fered to Hal­l­i­day was in­formed by a job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise con­duct­ed by an ex­ter­nal spe­cial­ist hu­man re­sources firm com­mis­sioned by the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers and ap­proved by the Hu­man Re­sources Sub-Com­mit­tee of Cab­i­net and WASA’s Board.

Gon­za­les added, “The per­for­mance in­cen­tive tar­gets fo­cus on the fol­low­ing key ar­eas that af­fect ser­vice qual­i­ty, op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy, and fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty:”

• Wa­ter cov­er­age across all dis­tricts;

• Im­prove­ment in wa­ter cov­er­age to un­served and un­der­served ar­eas;

• Op­er­a­tional cost cov­er­age;

• Com­pli­ance with Cab­i­net Di­rec­tive for Man­age­ment Re­struc­tur­ing;

• Or­gan­i­sa­tion­al process­es re-en­gi­neer­ing;

• Im­ple­men­ta­tion of New Per­for­mance Man­age­ment Sys­tem;

• Re­duc­tion in un­safe con­di­tions;

• In­crease in cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion rat­ing; and

• Re­duc­tion in Non-Rev­enue Wa­ter.