Unpaid WASA contractors in tears
New WASA chairman Shaffick Sultan-Khan wields a mean axe as he cuts into corruption and inefficiency. Contractors wilt under the pressure of an internal audit regarding contracts.
Small and medium-sized contractors hired to fix leaks and other repair jobs have been under the hammer for the past year from the Shaffick Sultan Khan- led Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA)
Board.
Some have gone out of business as the Board holds back payment while it conducts audits on contracts.
“I have payments to the bank for my back hoe and other equipment and this audit is going on and on”, one contractor complained to Tntinsider.
He added: “I have no problem with an audit of contracts. The new Board must be satisfied that all contracts are above board. But how long should an audit last, man? This audit is going on for almost a year. There are bills to pay. One cannot get back hoe jobs just like that. Renting out a back hoe for one day is not viable.”
He said he understood that there were reports of corruption, over payments and the like.
Sultan-Khan, since assuming the chairmanship of the loss-making public utility has embarked on a campaign of ridding it of corruption and inefficiency. Apart from the audit, managers have been removed and the Board has attempted to change the culture of inefficiency and corruption at an organisation recognised as PNM Party Group Number Two (after the Port or TSTT).
WASA has now formally launched a “whistleblowers”) website, “e-voice”, where information of corruption can be posted.
Khan, an industrial relations guru, stressed at the launch of a governance manual at the Trinidad Hilton on Wednesday that “it would not be business as usual at WASA” because he could not see the authority delivering its mandate of providing consumers with a high quality water supply based on its culture and reputation.
“The only option to us was total transformation of WASA. The Board would tolerate zero occurrences of corruption.”
Public Utility Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid described WASA as an “off course water company” and praised the efforts of the new Board and revealed that he would be bringing plans to Parliament to separate WASA potable water and waste water functions.
These are similar plans that have been touted in the past but WASA still remains with what Prime Minister Patrick Manning, himself, has described as a “$26 billion headache”. He was specifically referring to the cost of rehabilitating the country’s ageing and decrepit water distribution grid.
That figure was estimated several years ago and would now be higher and would mean the Government borrowing money for what would be the country’s greatest ever infrastructural project with the attendant reality of attendant large scale corruption.