I know the residents of Talparo and surrounding districts have been enjoying the benefits of this new Water Treatment Plant since May last year. And while we were not able to have an official commissioning ceremony when the plant came on stream, it is good that residents have had just about eight months to make judgments about the benefits brought by the installation of the plant.
I take it that has been a good experience for everyone in what can be described as a “country town”.
But as we know and as the Government has been making the point, “country people are people too.” In this respect we know that residents are fully deserving of the increased water supply now coming through your taps.
I am informed that the over two thousand two hundred residents in the Talparo community are now receiving an improved service. Before the plant was established, residents got a 24-hour supply per week, now you are receiving water for 48 to 72 hours per week. And while this is in no way a perfect situation, when compared to what was available under the previous administration, it represents a 100 to 200 per cent increase in water supply.
For the effort and achievement I am sure the residents will want me to thank the WASA Board of Commissioners and CEO Mr. Ganga Singh and his staff. But I have already told Mr. Singh and he knows the principle that to whom much is given, much is expected.
The Government regularly puts in a subvention to the Authority amounting to one point two billion dollars annually. For that kind of expenditure, the Government is demanding on behalf of the citizens a dramatic improvement and transformation in the operations of the utility.
We are doing so on a number of bases, most important that the Authority has promised the Government that it will achieve “Water Security for Every Sector’. That is a delivery level of water which must be sustained into the future.
The Water Security is one of the Pillars set out in the Manifesto of the People’s Partnership. For the record, we promised to “Coordinate integrated action on water resources and the management of those resources.” We have every intention of continuing to realise that promise to the national community.
The people of Trinidad and Tobago are fully aware that WASA as an institution has been neglected for decades by previous PNM governments.
The former administration poured billions of dollars into the Authority without adequate guidance and neglected to make the kinds of demands that my Government is now requiring of the management of the utility.
But as we are only too aware of, people voted for change and so they are not prepared to accept excuses. On your behalf, I am demanding recommitment from the minister and this key agency responsible for fulfilling the need for life-sustaining water.
In addition to this Water Treatment Plant in Talparo, the Authority has improved facilities and supplies in towns and villages such as Barrackpore, Cunupia, Tabaquite, Fyzabad and in my own constituency of Siparia.
These are areas which have traditionally been at the end of the WASA supply chain; we are now bringing them into the loop because “country people are people too”.
Having dealt with the immediate let me give you something of the bigger picture that the Minister of Public Utilities, Mr. Emmanuel George, has set for WASA to achieve…and which I, as Prime Minister, intend to hold him and the Authority to.
Improvement in the water supply is an objective linked to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. All countries which are part of the UN system have agreed to develop potable water supplies and waste water sanitation services for their populations to the year 2015.
In Trinidad and Tobago the Government and WASA have agreed to meet a few targets. At present waste water coverage across the country averages 30 per cent.
That means that WASA is treating and supervising the treatment of 30 per cent of the waste water released into the environment. By 2016 that coverage is projected to reach 40 per cent.
On the vital need for potable water, WASA has committed to supplying the population on a 24 hour, five days per week basis with water by the end of fiscal year 2012-2013. This will far outstrip the present average of 24 hours for two days per week. When that is achieved it would be a 150 per cent improvement in the water supply.
In responding to calls to fix leaks, it now takes WASA between 24 to 72 hours to get to the problem. By 2016 the average response time to fix leaks will be 24 hours.
To reiterate to make a point, the financing of the operations of the Authority costs the tax payers over $1.2 billion annually. That subvention makes up the deficit between the revenue earned by WASA and its expenditure.
If you work out the arithmetic you will find that WASA earns approximately $561 million per year but its expenditure reaches over $1.7 billion. There are also high account receivables/non paying customers at $506million - of which $356million is owed by residential customers.
With severe constraints on Government revenue during this period of difficult economic times internationally, there is a limit to which Government can continue with that level of subvention.
So WASA has taken the responsibility to become a viable entity over a relatively short period of time. The projection by the Authority is to turn the present billion dollar deficit into a 5 per cent surplus on its operations by 2016. That is a serious target that the Commissioners, the CEO, the senior management and the entire staff of the Authority have taken the responsibility for. You can be sure that the Minister of Public Utilities and the Government will demand that they achieve it by the stipulated time frame.
To do so, WASA has planned a few initiatives to achieve the objective. One method is the plan for universal metering of the water supplied by the utility to customers. Among other things, metering will make customers sharply aware of the need to conserve water. Consumers connected to the meters will know that there will be a direct connection between the quantity of water consumed, and that wasted, and the size of their bills.
Another important road to achieving financial viability is for customers to meet their responsibility to make bill payments to the Authority on time and in full. The Authority has over three hundred and eight-one thousand customers on its books. However, only approximately two hundred and fifty nine thousand of those are recognised as active customers. Owing to WASA, as pointed out before, is $356million by domestic customers.
Mister CEO you have to make every effort to collect those monies. I know too that recently you have indicated that the Authority will embark on a programme of disconnection for non-payment of outstanding bills.
Citizens and residents have to ensure that they meet their responsibility in order to keep water flowing from the taps and for the Authority to enhance its waste water coverage.
Investment by the private sector in a period when there is quite an amount of liquidity in the financial sector is another method for WASA to close the gap between revenue and expenditure. Trinidad and Tobago is a country in which there has never been a shortage of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. As we know from experience when private investors become involved in ventures, they seek to ensure efficiency which inevitably leads to financial viability. Private investment and involvement in WASA’s operations can bring results.
But along with ensuring that customers pay their bills, the Government will insist that WASA’s management remains sensitive to the needs of its customers for water and waste water services.
WASA’s 2010-2015 Strategic Plan requires large quantities of investment in mega projects. That is an area in which the Authority plans to reduce the input of the Government by encouraging private investors.
Among those mega projects to be taken on by WASA is the replacement of transmission and distribution lines. This is absolutely necessary to reduce and eventually end the leakage of excessive quantities of water produced by the Authority at very high cost. Last year I was very happy to commission the 33 kilometre Navet Trunk Main.
The new main replaced the badly corroded pipeline which had been in the ground for over 50 years. As could be expected large quantities of the water on the old line leaked into the ground.
WASA will continue its pipeline replacement exercise with the change-out of 235 kilometres of mains including the 43 kilometer Hollis Transmission Main. This is a main that was laid 75 years ago and has averaged 75 leaks per year over the last five years. This main is targeted for replacement this year.
I take it that has been a good experience for everyone in what can be described as a “country town”.
But as we know and as the Government has been making the point, “country people are people too.” In this respect we know that residents are fully deserving of the increased water supply now coming through your taps.
I am informed that the over two thousand two hundred residents in the Talparo community are now receiving an improved service. Before the plant was established, residents got a 24-hour supply per week, now you are receiving water for 48 to 72 hours per week. And while this is in no way a perfect situation, when compared to what was available under the previous administration, it represents a 100 to 200 per cent increase in water supply.
For the effort and achievement I am sure the residents will want me to thank the WASA Board of Commissioners and CEO Mr. Ganga Singh and his staff. But I have already told Mr. Singh and he knows the principle that to whom much is given, much is expected.
The Government regularly puts in a subvention to the Authority amounting to one point two billion dollars annually. For that kind of expenditure, the Government is demanding on behalf of the citizens a dramatic improvement and transformation in the operations of the utility.
We are doing so on a number of bases, most important that the Authority has promised the Government that it will achieve “Water Security for Every Sector’. That is a delivery level of water which must be sustained into the future.
The Water Security is one of the Pillars set out in the Manifesto of the People’s Partnership. For the record, we promised to “Coordinate integrated action on water resources and the management of those resources.” We have every intention of continuing to realise that promise to the national community.
The people of Trinidad and Tobago are fully aware that WASA as an institution has been neglected for decades by previous PNM governments.
The former administration poured billions of dollars into the Authority without adequate guidance and neglected to make the kinds of demands that my Government is now requiring of the management of the utility.
But as we are only too aware of, people voted for change and so they are not prepared to accept excuses. On your behalf, I am demanding recommitment from the minister and this key agency responsible for fulfilling the need for life-sustaining water.
In addition to this Water Treatment Plant in Talparo, the Authority has improved facilities and supplies in towns and villages such as Barrackpore, Cunupia, Tabaquite, Fyzabad and in my own constituency of Siparia.
These are areas which have traditionally been at the end of the WASA supply chain; we are now bringing them into the loop because “country people are people too”.
Having dealt with the immediate let me give you something of the bigger picture that the Minister of Public Utilities, Mr. Emmanuel George, has set for WASA to achieve…and which I, as Prime Minister, intend to hold him and the Authority to.
Improvement in the water supply is an objective linked to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. All countries which are part of the UN system have agreed to develop potable water supplies and waste water sanitation services for their populations to the year 2015.
In Trinidad and Tobago the Government and WASA have agreed to meet a few targets. At present waste water coverage across the country averages 30 per cent.
That means that WASA is treating and supervising the treatment of 30 per cent of the waste water released into the environment. By 2016 that coverage is projected to reach 40 per cent.
On the vital need for potable water, WASA has committed to supplying the population on a 24 hour, five days per week basis with water by the end of fiscal year 2012-2013. This will far outstrip the present average of 24 hours for two days per week. When that is achieved it would be a 150 per cent improvement in the water supply.
In responding to calls to fix leaks, it now takes WASA between 24 to 72 hours to get to the problem. By 2016 the average response time to fix leaks will be 24 hours.
To reiterate to make a point, the financing of the operations of the Authority costs the tax payers over $1.2 billion annually. That subvention makes up the deficit between the revenue earned by WASA and its expenditure.
If you work out the arithmetic you will find that WASA earns approximately $561 million per year but its expenditure reaches over $1.7 billion. There are also high account receivables/non paying customers at $506million - of which $356million is owed by residential customers.
With severe constraints on Government revenue during this period of difficult economic times internationally, there is a limit to which Government can continue with that level of subvention.
So WASA has taken the responsibility to become a viable entity over a relatively short period of time. The projection by the Authority is to turn the present billion dollar deficit into a 5 per cent surplus on its operations by 2016. That is a serious target that the Commissioners, the CEO, the senior management and the entire staff of the Authority have taken the responsibility for. You can be sure that the Minister of Public Utilities and the Government will demand that they achieve it by the stipulated time frame.
To do so, WASA has planned a few initiatives to achieve the objective. One method is the plan for universal metering of the water supplied by the utility to customers. Among other things, metering will make customers sharply aware of the need to conserve water. Consumers connected to the meters will know that there will be a direct connection between the quantity of water consumed, and that wasted, and the size of their bills.
Another important road to achieving financial viability is for customers to meet their responsibility to make bill payments to the Authority on time and in full. The Authority has over three hundred and eight-one thousand customers on its books. However, only approximately two hundred and fifty nine thousand of those are recognised as active customers. Owing to WASA, as pointed out before, is $356million by domestic customers.
Mister CEO you have to make every effort to collect those monies. I know too that recently you have indicated that the Authority will embark on a programme of disconnection for non-payment of outstanding bills.
Citizens and residents have to ensure that they meet their responsibility in order to keep water flowing from the taps and for the Authority to enhance its waste water coverage.
Investment by the private sector in a period when there is quite an amount of liquidity in the financial sector is another method for WASA to close the gap between revenue and expenditure. Trinidad and Tobago is a country in which there has never been a shortage of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. As we know from experience when private investors become involved in ventures, they seek to ensure efficiency which inevitably leads to financial viability. Private investment and involvement in WASA’s operations can bring results.
But along with ensuring that customers pay their bills, the Government will insist that WASA’s management remains sensitive to the needs of its customers for water and waste water services.
WASA’s 2010-2015 Strategic Plan requires large quantities of investment in mega projects. That is an area in which the Authority plans to reduce the input of the Government by encouraging private investors.
Among those mega projects to be taken on by WASA is the replacement of transmission and distribution lines. This is absolutely necessary to reduce and eventually end the leakage of excessive quantities of water produced by the Authority at very high cost. Last year I was very happy to commission the 33 kilometre Navet Trunk Main.
The new main replaced the badly corroded pipeline which had been in the ground for over 50 years. As could be expected large quantities of the water on the old line leaked into the ground.
WASA will continue its pipeline replacement exercise with the change-out of 235 kilometres of mains including the 43 kilometer Hollis Transmission Main. This is a main that was laid 75 years ago and has averaged 75 leaks per year over the last five years. This main is targeted for replacement this year.
The expansion of wastewater treatment plants is another major project that is being undertaken by WASA. In this respect there will be four major wastewater initiatives. In the east there will be plants in Malabar and Maloney. Likewise there will be a new wastewater facility in San Fernando. We are not forgetting Tobago so the other initiative will be in the South Western part of the Sister Isle where a large urban population lives.
In addition to these new installations, WASA is to assume responsibility for dozens of private wastewater plants across Trinidad. These plants include those of the Housing Development Corporation. The effort will bring all of these individual systems into a coordinated and functioning whole.
High quality wastewater produced by the very modern and efficient Beetham Wastewater Plant is filtered back into the environment. However many countries around the world are now reusing properly treated wastewater for appropriate purposes. WASA is committed to exploring that potential.
Construction is due to begin on the new desalination plant at Point Fortin which when it comes fully on stream at the end of 2012, will add 4.6mgd into the system.
To keep the promises made to improve the service to customers, the Commissioners, the CEO and his senior management cadre know that greater levels of productivity by workers at the Authority must be achieved.
These are not objectives far off into the future. The transformation has to start in WASA’s service to its customers. No better place to start than by speeding-up the time it takes to repair leaks and tend to other customer needs. The management has to demonstrate professionalism, courtesy and the required sensitivity to customers.
If customers are to hold up their end of the bargain to be responsible, then WASA’s staff members have to show customers they are worthy of that trust.
The Government shall be working directly through the Minister of Public Utilities to inspire and when and where necessary drive the transformation.
We understand that customers are demanding and deserving of the benefits of increased and quality supplies of potable water. So too do we know the health value in the expansion of sanitation services.
This Portable Water Treatment Plant here at Talparo and the benefits that residents are receiving can serve as inspiration for even greater effort on the part of WASA.
We therefore feel very confident that the utility is on the right track. Minister Emmanuel George has the support and backing of his cabinet colleagues to develop the water sector. But he knows too that positive results have to be achieved in the short term and the Executive will expect nothing less.
I thank you for being here and glad that I could see improvement in the lives of the average citizen because that is what the People’s Partnership Government is all about.
In addition to these new installations, WASA is to assume responsibility for dozens of private wastewater plants across Trinidad. These plants include those of the Housing Development Corporation. The effort will bring all of these individual systems into a coordinated and functioning whole.
High quality wastewater produced by the very modern and efficient Beetham Wastewater Plant is filtered back into the environment. However many countries around the world are now reusing properly treated wastewater for appropriate purposes. WASA is committed to exploring that potential.
Construction is due to begin on the new desalination plant at Point Fortin which when it comes fully on stream at the end of 2012, will add 4.6mgd into the system.
To keep the promises made to improve the service to customers, the Commissioners, the CEO and his senior management cadre know that greater levels of productivity by workers at the Authority must be achieved.
These are not objectives far off into the future. The transformation has to start in WASA’s service to its customers. No better place to start than by speeding-up the time it takes to repair leaks and tend to other customer needs. The management has to demonstrate professionalism, courtesy and the required sensitivity to customers.
If customers are to hold up their end of the bargain to be responsible, then WASA’s staff members have to show customers they are worthy of that trust.
The Government shall be working directly through the Minister of Public Utilities to inspire and when and where necessary drive the transformation.
We understand that customers are demanding and deserving of the benefits of increased and quality supplies of potable water. So too do we know the health value in the expansion of sanitation services.
This Portable Water Treatment Plant here at Talparo and the benefits that residents are receiving can serve as inspiration for even greater effort on the part of WASA.
We therefore feel very confident that the utility is on the right track. Minister Emmanuel George has the support and backing of his cabinet colleagues to develop the water sector. But he knows too that positive results have to be achieved in the short term and the Executive will expect nothing less.
I thank you for being here and glad that I could see improvement in the lives of the average citizen because that is what the People’s Partnership Government is all about.
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