Minister of Public Utilities, Marvin Gonzales' News Conference on WASA - Tuesday February 23rd 2021

Key Points from Minister of Public Utilities, Marvin Gonzales’ News Conference on WASA - Tuesday February 23rd, 2021 Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales announced that Dr. Lennox Sealy has been appointed as Executive Director of WASA with immediate effect. A Deputy Executive Director of WASA will also be appointed to assist Dr. Sealy in discharging his duties. Acting CEO of WASA, Mr. Alan Poon King, will return to his substantive post as Director of Customer Care. Minister Gonzales said Government took this step to appoint an Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director at WASA because there is a serious management problem at the State Utility. While he agreed that “ageing infrastructure” was an issue, management accountability is the root cause of problems at WASA. The Public Utilities Minister noted that corruption, allegations of corruption, and the perception of corruption have been plaguing WASA for the longest time and it is time the company is transformed. A Cabinet Sub Committee has been appointed to oversee the transformation of WASA. The Committee will include the Minister of Planning and Development, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development (Chair), the Minister of Public Utilities, the Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Brian Manning, the Minister of Sport and Community Development, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Communications, Symon De Nobriga, the Minister of Energy and Energy Industries, and the Minister of Social Development and Family Services. Government has not taken a decision on Voluntary Separation of WASA staff at this time. The recent report from the Cabinet Sub Committee on WASA will be laid in the Parliament next Friday. The population will have full access to the findings of this report. The first paragraph of the Executive Summary of this report reads as follows: "The Water and Sewerage Authority has become an unwieldly, unproductive, unresponsive organisation that has deteriorated and is no longer efficiently serving the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. In numerous instances and over many decades, efficiency was sacrificed for, inter alia, political patronage, and management accountability exchanged for industrial stability, resulting in an organisation in which there is little correlation between the contents of Collective Agreements and the realities of providing a reliable service to the national population at an affordable and acceptable cost to the taxpayers of Trinidad and Tobago."