SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) will soon in­sti­tute a “name and shame” cam­paign against any­one charged with il­le­gal­ly ex­tract­ing, dis­trib­ut­ing, and sell­ing its wa­ter.

The sale of WASA’s wa­ter is not an ar­restable of­fence. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the WASA Act, you can be fined $750. This is ef­fec­tive­ly a slap on the wrist as the au­thor­i­ty has been un­cov­er­ing sev­er­al wa­ter rack­ets through­out the coun­try where peo­ple have been rak­ing in mil­lions of dol­lars through il­le­gal op­er­a­tions. In Morne Di­a­blo, last month, res­i­dents re­vealed that one op­er­a­tor earned be­tween $4,000 and $5,000 dai­ly sell­ing wa­ter.

WASA’s deputy chair­man, Al­ston Fournil­li­er, mean­while, said WASA was con­tin­u­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a 30-year-old Pe­nal pri­vate wa­ter truck op­er­a­tor who was caught red-hand­ed sell­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing wa­ter at Ra­mai Trace, Debe, on April 4.

The op­er­a­tor was caught by WASA’s man­ag­er of se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, Dwayne Mor­gan, and es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers Mar­lon Alexan­der, Roger Ram­lal, and Michael Kublal dur­ing a sting op­er­a­tion.

Caught in the act

On April 3, a Guardian Me­dia team set out to catch an il­le­gal op­er­a­tor in the act. Pos­ing as a cus­tomer in­ter­est­ed in buy­ing wa­ter, we called sev­er­al op­er­a­tors.

One op­er­a­tor, who iden­ti­fied him­self as Kier­an, of­fered to sell 1,200 gal­lons of wa­ter for $350. Guardian Me­dia re­quest­ed that it be de­liv­ered at Bun­see Trace, Pe­nal.

“We kind ah scep­ti­cal of who we fulling wa­ter for now. You know it get se­ri­ous. I can’t drop off the wa­ter be­cause I am on a job. Ex­pect a call from some­one short­ly,” Kier­an said.

Com­plain­ing that WASA was not giv­ing peo­ple wa­ter and block­ing them from sell­ing the es­sen­tial com­mod­i­ty, Kier­an hint­ed that he could not let his guard down, as a con­tin­gent of WASA’s of­fi­cers have beefed up their pa­trols in the com­mu­ni­ty.

When the call came in af­ter 5 pm that day, the per­son said it was too late for the wa­ter to be de­liv­ered.

The fol­low­ing day, on April 4, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the same op­er­a­tors, this time us­ing a dif­fer­ent phone.

One op­er­a­tor of­fered to sell 1,000 gal­lons of wa­ter for $300. The truck­load was to be de­liv­ered at an aban­doned poul­try de­pot at Ra­mai Trace, Debe.

“In a few min­utes, some­one will call you,” he said.

The call came through 15 min­utes lat­er, and the per­son asked for di­rec­tions.

Mor­gan and his team were no­ti­fied of the il­le­gal sale, and they staked out the op­er­a­tion in a bar op­po­site the de­pot.

When the op­er­a­tor drove in­to the de­pot, he asked him where he ob­tained the wa­ter.

First, he said he sourced the wa­ter from a fire hy­drant near Fun Splash Wa­ter Park in Debe.

Asked if he had the au­tho­ri­sa­tion to ex­tract wa­ter from a hy­drant, he replied, “The rea­son why I take so long ... we does buy the wa­ter from WASA. But WASA trucks and cor­po­ra­tion trucks are first pri­or­i­ty.”

Then he changed his sto­ry, say­ing it was res­i­den­tial wa­ter he was sell­ing.

“When WASA sell we the wa­ter, they giv­ing trou­ble this past month here. They ex­pect we to buy all that wa­ter and car­ry it home by we house. Re­mem­ber, we is wa­ter truck peo­ple. They sell we the wa­ter, but for we home use. Every­body does re­sell it back here.”

The op­er­a­tor was paid $300 but did not pro­duce a re­ceipt.

“We don’t give re­ceipts,” he said, adding that the fee was for the wa­ter and de­liv­ery.

While he was fill­ing the tank, WASA of­fi­cers came to the scene and blocked the wa­ter truck with their ve­hi­cles.

Alexan­der asked the op­er­a­tor if he had ob­tained per­mis­sion from WASA to dis­trib­ute the wa­ter.

“No, I did not,” he an­swered.

Dur­ing ques­tion­ing, the op­er­a­tor said it was rain­wa­ter he had si­phoned from his tank and sold.

Pac­ing up and down, he was cau­tioned about ped­dling un­treat­ed rain­wa­ter.

The op­er­a­tor put up a de­fence, say­ing he used two clean­ing agents, “bleach and chlo­rine,” to pu­ri­fy the wa­ter.

Mor­gan lat­er con­fis­cat­ed the op­er­a­tor’s hose, and the $300 was tak­en from him to be ten­dered as ev­i­dence in court.

Ad­mit­ting that he took a chance and got caught, the op­er­a­tor begged that pho­tos tak­en dur­ing the un­law­ful sale not be post­ed on­line or used on tele­vi­sion.

“I was the un­for­tu­nate one,” he said.

Fines ahead

The op­er­a­tor is ex­pect­ed to face mul­ti­ple charges for his in­frac­tions, one of which is sell­ing wa­ter, which at­tracts a fine of $750 un­der Sec­tion 43(1) of the WASA Act.

Once any­one ap­pears be­fore the court charged with steal­ing or in­ter­fer­ing with WASA’s wa­ter, Fournil­li­er said, the au­thor­i­ty would “name and shame” them.

“This would dis­cour­age the op­er­a­tors. In the in­ter­im, that is the on­ly re­solve I think we have out­side of those small penal­ties for the of­fences.”

Fournil­li­er said WASA has pro­posed that cer­tain sec­tions of the act be amend­ed for peo­ple caught tam­per­ing with its valves and pipelines, in­clud­ing ab­stract­ing, sell­ing, and dis­trib­ut­ing its wa­ter.

“The penal­ties are too min­i­mal. So it (act) has to be re­draft­ed. WASA is re­view­ing it at the mo­ment,” Fournil­li­er said.

He said WASA would al­so take civ­il ac­tion against those caught prof­i­teer­ing from the il­le­gal op­er­a­tions.

On­ly trucks con­tract­ed by WASA and the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are au­tho­rised to de­liv­er free wa­ter to those in need.

De­scrib­ing the sale of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter as a se­ri­ous is­sue, Fournil­li­er said this must be ad­dressed swift­ly.

Last month, WASA had to warn the pub­lic not to buy un­treat­ed wa­ter from Siparia, Debe, and Morne Di­a­blo pri­vate truck op­er­a­tors who they sus­pect­ed were si­phon­ing wa­ter from their wells.

“When peo­ple start to tam­per with un­treat­ed wa­ter, you can end up in a very com­pro­mis­ing place, so you would want to pro­tect that,” Fournil­li­er said.

WASA is con­duct­ing an in­de­pen­dent probe in­to wa­ter scams.

Flash­back

Last month, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les made pub­lic a wa­ter truck­ing scam in Morne Di­a­blo. For months, these op­er­a­tors have been de­priv­ing res­i­dents of wa­ter by lock­ing off WASA’s valves, forc­ing them to buy the es­sen­tial com­mod­i­ty for be­tween $300 and $600 per truck­load.

The op­er­a­tors al­so pay some res­i­dents $50 per tank to store the stolen wa­ter.

The op­er­a­tors al­so si­phoned un­treat­ed wa­ter from WASA’s wells lo­cat­ed in re­mote ar­eas. Many of these wells are not prop­er­ly fenced, locked and guard­ed by WASA, al­low­ing easy en­try.

The man be­hind this mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar scam is said to be a for­mer WASA em­ploy­ee.