Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Gov­ern­ment is head­ing to Par­lia­ment to strength­en laws aimed at crack­ing down on what it de­scribes as a “wa­ter theft rack­et” by pri­vate con­trac­tors.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounced, “I would like to alert the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that there are pri­vate con­trac­tors who are steal­ing wa­ter from WASA fa­cil­i­ties and then sell­ing it back to per­sons with­in the same com­mu­ni­ties where they are steal­ing the wa­ter.”

He added, “This is an of­fence.”

Padarath said this is a mat­ter that both he and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have been speak­ing about, and the Gov­ern­ment will go to Par­lia­ment “very soon” to in­crease fines and penal­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with this of­fence.

Un­der the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Act, the penal­ty for ab­stract­ing wa­ter with­out au­tho­ri­sa­tion car­ries a fine of just $275.

Sim­i­lar­ly, il­le­gal sale and dis­tri­b­u­tion of wa­ter, com­mon­ly linked to so-called “wa­ter-truck­ing scams,” where in­di­vid­u­als ex­tract wa­ter from WASA’s mains or wells to sell to res­i­dents, at­tracts a fine of $750.

No­tably, this is a fixed penal­ty that does not scale based on the vol­ume of wa­ter tak­en or the prof­its gen­er­at­ed.

Padarath said, “There will be a crack­down on this type of ac­tiv­i­ty. There will be a crack­down on this ap­proach be­ing tak­en by pri­vate con­trac­tors in lo­cal par­lia­ments to dig out the eyes of the pop­u­la­tion.”

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, then-min­is­ter of pub­lic util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les dis­closed that an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­way in­to a sus­pect­ed “wa­ter truck­ing rack­et” in­volv­ing elect­ed coun­cil­lors with­in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

It was al­leged that cer­tain of­fi­cials owned pri­vate wa­ter trucks and worked in col­lab­o­ra­tion with WASA em­ploy­ees to de­lib­er­ate­ly shut off valves in tar­get­ed ar­eas, cre­at­ing ar­ti­fi­cial short­ages and dri­ving de­mand for their own wa­ter sup­ply ser­vices.

Padarath said there will al­so be in­creased se­cu­ri­ty at WASA fa­cil­i­ties.

He said this will come in the form of elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing and phys­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty on site.

Mean­while, Padarath said he will seek an au­di­ence with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to strength­en co­or­di­na­tion with of­fi­cers in tack­ling the van­dal­ism of WASA fa­cil­i­ties.

In To­ba­go on March 27 and 28, in what was de­scribed by both THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath as a co­or­di­nat­ed act of “do­mes­tic ter­ror­ism,” van­dals tar­get­ed four key fa­cil­i­ties.

The van­dals al­leged­ly cut pow­er ca­bles and re­moved crit­i­cal elec­tri­cal com­po­nents in what of­fi­cials say was a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to crip­ple pro­duc­tion.

The at­tack re­sult­ed in the loss of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2.1 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day and left 17 com­mu­ni­ties with­out sup­ply, in­clud­ing Crown Point and sev­er­al cen­tral and north coast ar­eas, dur­ing the lead-up to the East­er pe­ri­od.

By March 31, nine peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed, in­clud­ing a WASA em­ploy­ee, fu­elling con­cerns about in­sid­er in­volve­ment.

But Padarath said this was not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent.

“We had a sit­u­a­tion arise in the con­stituen­cy of Siparia as well, last week, where a num­ber of our fa­cil­i­ties were van­dalised. This was shared with the me­dia, but I be­lieve it wasn’t such on a large scale as in To­ba­go, and, there­fore, it may have fall­en un­der the radar, and we have brought these mat­ters to the at­ten­tion of the TTPS.”