One hundred vacancies at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) are to be filled from as early as next week as part of a $183 million-dollar deal agreed on Thursday between the Public Services Association (PSA) and the utility's management. The remaining 400 openings would be advertised and filled before the end of this year, said PSA president Watson Duke and WASA's chief executive officer Ganga Singh in a joint media conference at WASA's Farm Road, St Joseph headquarters. Further, issues related to arrears outstanding to more than 4,000 employees have been settled and workers at the lowest range of the utility's salary structure will each take home not less than $42,700 each. This will include the five per cent salary increase for the period 2008-2010.
This comes days before Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar meets with disgruntled union leaders in an attempt to stave off a national strike over what they said was the People's Partnership's five per cent cap. Singh said current expenditure at the utility would now climb to $1.3 billion annually from $801 million. But, Duke said as far as the union was concerned the deal was a double whammy for workers. "We have been able to bring together two main pillars of employment: That is income security and job security. It has staved off the termination of some 700 workers, because we have accepted five per cent. The offer was the highest offer on the table and we have accepted that. But we have also accepted the opportunity to continue dreaming, hence we have 800 workers that will be resting comfortably knowing that there will be a restructuring exercise that will help expand and create a new authority that would be more focused on the new goals and vision espoused by the CEO and this partnership," he said.
Singh said WASA was not operating at its true potential and had a revenue stream of $566 million annually. He said a significant amount of money which came into WASA for capital expenditure and for personnel expenditure came from the Government. "We have an appreciation for the kind of growth we have to attain. It requires enlightened leadership to look at your reality and not enter into the realm of illusion. "We are an organisation that is dependent on government subvention and we are clear that we have some way to go with respect to transformation. We are very happy that our workers were able to get five per cent," he said.