Moonilal forces debate on corruption in WASA

Oropouche East MP on Friday got the Speaker of the House of Representatives to agree to a debate on alleged corruption and nepotism in the state-owned Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).

And in the debate that followed Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid admitted that all is not well with water authority.

He said at least one employee has been suspended and a number of them have been charged with offences relating to the alleged corruption in the delivery of water.

Abdul-Hamid said some communities are "being starved of water" and people are resorting to buying water from WASA's truckborne suppliers. He promised that WASA is taking action to deal with the problem.

"There are some people who are responsible for turning the valves on and off, they’re called turn cocks, who would deliberately refuse to turn on the water to particular villages because their intention is to starve that particular village of water.

"And when they have starved them of water for one week or two weeks, then they are forced to turn to the water trucks and they are forced to buy water from the water trucks and very often the people who run the water truck business have some relationship with the turn cocks," he said.

In making a case for the debate Moonilal called for a public enquiry into the allegations of corruption at WASA.

The authority's chairman Dr Shafeek Sultan-Khan first raised the matter of corruption when he announced water rationing at a news conference on Monday.

Moonilal also spoke of an alleged conflict of interest involving a top WASA manager who has a company that's involved in the maintenance of wells at the authority.

Abdul-Hamid did not respond to those allegations, but tried to blame the former UNC administration for WASA's debt noting that when the PNM took offfice WASA had a $4.2 billion debt in 2001. he said there was no WASA debt in 1995 when the UNC took office.

The minister suggested that some people are sabotaging WASA. The minister said Sultan-Khan was referring to that on Monday when he talked about institutionalised corruption at WASA.

"On that particular matter, we have discovered persons who were responsible and at least one person and a number have also been charged in respect to cases like those, Mr Speaker, in case you want know what is being done, Mr Speaker," Abdul-Hamid said.

He said a WASA has an agreement with an Israeli firm to establish new systems at the authority, including one that will ensure the turn cocks are controlled from a centralised location and not by engineers at the site of the valves.