Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) have ad­vanced sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with the Gov­ern­ment meet­ing a dead­line set ear­li­er this week to move the out­stand­ing wage pro­pos­als for­ward.

Padarath gave the up­date yes­ter­day, af­ter speak­ing with PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas and WASA act­ing CEO Dain Ma­haraj.

He said the pro­pos­als are now be­ing for­ward­ed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties for the next stage of con­sid­er­a­tion.

“I can con­firm that the ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween WASA and the PSA have ad­vanced sig­nif­i­cant­ly, so much so that we have been able to meet to­day’s (Fri­day) dead­line as ar­tic­u­lat­ed by my­self to WASA and the union on Mon­day,” Padarath said.

He said the cor­re­spon­dence con­tain­ing the pro­pos­als was ex­pect­ed to reach the min­istry with­in the same day.

Padarath de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in the process.

“We have kept to the time­line that was giv­en to both WASA and the PSA, and there­fore this is very good news that we were able to ad­vance these dis­cus­sions and come to a com­mon ground to meet to­day’s dead­line,” he said.

The min­is­ter said the pro­pos­als will now have to go through the nec­es­sary process­es, with the PSA ex­pect­ed to make fur­ther rep­re­sen­ta­tions and en­gage oth­er stake­hold­ers.

“So to­day is the first ma­jor leg in terms of ad­vanc­ing the process,” Padarath said.

The de­vel­op­ment fol­lows two days of protest ac­tion by WASA work­ers out­side the au­thor­i­ty’s com­pound over out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volv­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,800 month­ly-paid em­ploy­ees.

Thomas placed the protest ac­tion on hold af­ter Padarath met with the union, WASA’s CEO Roshan Bab­wah and oth­er ex­ec­u­tives on Mon­day.

Thomas said the min­is­ter’s in­ter­ven­tion re­sult­ed in a com­mit­ment from WASA to have the union’s wage pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted to the min­istry by the end of the week.

She said the PSA was hope­ful the lat­est de­vel­op­ment would lead to a set­tle­ment but warned that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion could re­sume if the com­mit­ment is not ho­n­oured.

“We have the com­mit­ment, and if it is not fol­lowed through, of course, we con­tin­ue with the ac­tion,” Thomas said.

Thomas al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the dis­pute cen­tres sole­ly on Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to a ten per cent wage in­crease.

She said the Gov­ern­ment had not re­neged on its com­mit­ment to pay the ten per cent in­crease to any cat­e­go­ry of work­ers.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Thomas on this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, but did not get a re­sponse up to press time.