The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty has con­demned what it de­scribed as an act of crim­i­nal sab­o­tage fol­low­ing the theft of a pow­er ca­ble at the St. Joseph Boost­er Sta­tion in Ma­yaro.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Wednes­day, WASA said the in­ci­dent dis­rupt­ed op­er­a­tions at the fa­cil­i­ty and threat­ened the de­liv­ery of pipe-borne wa­ter to sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty, per­son­nel con­duct­ing checks at the boost­er sta­tion dis­cov­ered at about 12.30 a.m. on Tues­day that the pow­er ca­ble run­ning from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion pow­er sup­ply to the me­ter at the sta­tion had been re­moved.

WASA said the mat­ter was im­me­di­ate­ly re­port­ed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, which has since launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

In the state­ment, the Au­thor­i­ty de­scribed the theft as a di­rect at­tack on na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture and the rights of cit­i­zens who re­ly on a sta­ble wa­ter sup­ply.

WASA stat­ed that van­dal­ism and theft at pub­lic util­i­ty fa­cil­i­ties cre­ate hard­ship for house­holds and busi­ness­es by in­ter­rupt­ing ac­cess to wa­ter ser­vices. The Au­thor­i­ty said such crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty dam­ages pub­lic trust and af­fects its abil­i­ty to car­ry out its man­date.

The Au­thor­i­ty al­so warned that the per­pe­tra­tors could face le­gal ac­tion un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go law, not­ing that the stolen ca­ble forms part of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture owned by a pub­lic util­i­ty.

WASA said it has in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTPS to en­sure cas­es in­volv­ing van­dal­ism at its fa­cil­i­ties re­ceive pri­or­i­ty at­ten­tion. The Au­thor­i­ty added that it re­mains com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing a re­li­able and sta­ble wa­ter sup­ply de­spite re­peat­ed acts of sab­o­tage tar­get­ing its in­fra­struc­ture.

The re­lease fur­ther re­mind­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic that dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty is a crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act and the Ma­li­cious Dam­age Act, with penal­ties in­clud­ing fines and im­pris­on­ment up­on con­vic­tion.

WASA ap­pealed to cit­i­zens to as­sist in­ves­ti­ga­tors by re­port­ing sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty near any of its in­stal­la­tions. Mem­bers of the pub­lic with in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the theft at the St. Joseph Boost­er Sta­tion or oth­er acts of van­dal­ism were urged to con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion or call the Au­thor­i­ty’s Van­dal­ism Hot­line at 496-6738.

The Au­thor­i­ty did not in­di­cate how long re­pairs or restora­tion works at the fa­cil­i­ty would take.