SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty has been spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to truck wa­ter in­to com­mu­ni­ties and build sev­er­al tank farms, es­ti­mat­ed to be over $7 mil­lion in all, to im­prove dis­tri­b­u­tion, yet res­i­dents across Trinidad say they are still go­ing weeks with­out wa­ter in their taps. Some say they are buy­ing wa­ter from pri­vate sup­pli­ers, oth­ers are col­lect­ing rain­wa­ter, while fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to ra­tion what lit­tle they re­ceive.

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion found that more than $16 mil­lion was award­ed in wa­ter truck­ing con­tracts be­tween De­cem­ber 2025 and June 2026 and the pend­ing con­struc­tion of ten tank farms; ques­tions have been raised about the ef­fec­tive­ness of the spend­ing as the coun­try’s wa­ter woes per­sists.

Be­tween De­cem­ber 2025 and June of this year, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) award­ed over $16 mil­lion in con­tracts to de­liv­er truck-borne wa­ter to de­prived com­mu­ni­ties.

On De­cem­ber 19, 2025, WASA award­ed a $15 mil­lion con­tract to 11 com­pa­nies to pro­vide wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices through­out the coun­try.

This con­tract had to be com­plet­ed in one month.

Less than two weeks lat­er, on De­cem­ber 30, nine con­trac­tors shared a $1.6 mil­lion con­tract to trans­port and dis­trib­ute truck-borne wa­ter to com­mu­ni­ties in need of wa­ter over a five-week pe­ri­od.

A third con­tract was award­ed to eight com­pa­nies on April 23, 2026, to trans­port and dis­trib­ute wa­ter through­out Trinidad for five months.

A fixed price was not giv­en for this con­tract.

The con­tract’s val­ue was based on “rates.”

On June 25, 2026, a fourth con­tract was award­ed to 20 con­trac­tors not on a fixed sum but on “rates.”

These con­trac­tors were giv­en three months to com­plete the job.

Com­bin­ing the longer time­frames with rate-based billing for the last two con­tracts, WASA’s to­tal ex­pen­di­ture for its truck-borne sup­ply could have sur­passed the ini­tial $16 mil­lion.

The suc­cess­ful con­trac­tors list­ed on WASA’s web­site were Amp En­vi­ron­men­tal and Con­struc­tion Ltd, Cadir Wa­heed Trans­port, Fides Ltd, Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Ltd, Her­alal Ram­padarath, Lenson Com­pa­ny Ltd, Reyasath Trans­port, Bk Hold­ings Ltd, D&D Au­to World Ltd, Roy­al Gem Ltd, San­gre Grande Heavy Equip­ment Rental and Trans­port Con­struc­tion Ltd, Trav Con­trac­tors, Jag­gerssar Agency Com­pa­ny Ltd, Mainecoon Con­trac­tors Ltd, Singh’s Au­to Rental Com­pa­ny, Na­mal­co Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd, Trin­ba­go Evo­lu­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd, Wafiq Trans­port Ltd, Kadar Cas­sir­am Ltd, XP En­gi­neer­ing Ltd and Phoenix Weld­ing and Fab­ri­cat­ing Ltd.

On the heels of WASA award­ing two truck-borne con­tracts to­talling $16.6 mil­lion last De­cem­ber, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath com­mis­sioned a WASA tank farm on Jan­u­ary 16 this year at Clarke Rochard Road in the Siparia con­stituen­cy of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The third con­tract was is­sued in late April, three weeks af­ter Padarath had in­formed the na­tion at a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing that the UNC-led Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to in­vest mil­lions of dol­lars in short-, medi­um- and long-term projects, aimed at sta­bil­is­ing and ex­pand­ing wa­ter pro­duc­tion across the coun­try.

These ini­tia­tives in­clud­ed a $7.5 mil­lion tank farm pro­gramme. Tank farms are large stor­age fa­cil­i­ties that house a col­lec­tion of large tanks used to hold bulk quan­ti­ties of liq­uids.

But by that time, the Clarke Rochard Road tank farm in Siparia had al­ready been com­mis­sioned by Padarath on Jan­u­ary 16, 2026, three months be­fore an­nounc­ing the ini­tia­tive.

Out­lin­ing the plan, Padarath said Cab­i­net had al­ready ap­proved the ex­pan­sion of the pi­lot tank farm, which was im­ple­ment­ed as an im­me­di­ate re­sponse to the wors­en­ing dry sea­son con­di­tions.

He in­sist­ed the tank farms were a short-term mea­sure.

“It’s not a quick fix,” Padarath said.

Tank farms were iden­ti­fied for Moru­ga/Table­land, Ma­yaro, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and Siparia to serve as a cen­tralised hub for truck-borne wa­ter, there­by re­duc­ing the re­liance on long-dis­tance truck­ing and en­sur­ing faster re­sponse times to com­mu­ni­ties that rou­tine­ly go with­out a pipe-borne sup­ply for days and even weeks.

“The lo­ca­tions have al­ready been iden­ti­fied, and I’m told at this point in time WASA is at the stage of pro­cure­ment in terms of at­tempt­ing to ex­e­cute the project,” Padarath had said when he broke the news to the pop­u­la­tion.

In the Siparia con­stituen­cy, four tank farms were to be con­struct­ed at Clarke Rochard Road, Teemul Trace, Moolai Trace and Govin­dra Gar­dens.

De­liv­er­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate on the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2027) Bill in Par­lia­ment last month, for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les called for a “crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to WASA” in­to an al­leged wa­ter truck­ing rack­et at the wa­ter com­pa­ny, claim­ing it was bleed­ing mon­ey and fam­i­lies were still suf­fer­ing for wa­ter.

The Op­po­si­tion MP claimed that some WASA em­ploy­ees were de­lib­er­ate­ly de­priv­ing com­mu­ni­ties of pipe-borne wa­ter to gen­er­ate busi­ness for wa­ter truck con­trac­tors.

He said if WASA had a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply, these trucks would be out of busi­ness.

Gon­za­les al­so ques­tioned an al­most $30 mil­lion in­crease in WASA’s al­lo­ca­tion for wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices in 2027 and raised con­cerns about con­trac­tors al­leged­ly be­ing paid twice to trans­port wa­ter to some of the au­thor­i­ty’s tank farms.

WASA’s es­ti­mat­ed al­lo­ca­tion for wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices in 2026 moved from $52.9 mil­lion to $82.7 mil­lion in 2027.

“I am told, Mr Speak­er, that those tank farms are not con­nect­ed to the wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem. So you con­struct a tank farm, you would ex­pect that the tank farm would be con­nect­ed to a wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, that when wa­ter comes on a sched­uled ba­sis, it will go in­to a stor­age … and it will re­main there for a cou­ple of days un­til the next sched­uled sup­ply.”

Dur­ing his tenure as line min­is­ter for WASA, Gon­za­les ex­posed an al­leged mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar wa­ter truck­ing rack­et in Morne Di­a­blo, where more than 5,000 res­i­dents were forced to pur­chase wa­ter af­ter pri­vate op­er­a­tors in­ter­fered with WASA’s sup­ply.

Padarath fired back, stat­ing that a re­port had iden­ti­fied mil­lions of dol­lars in ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties at WASA un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, which he said would be re­ferred to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Are tank farms ef­fec­tive?

Last Tues­day, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed three tank farms in Siparia to gauge their op­er­a­tions.

At Clarke Rochard Road Cen­tralised Wa­ter Stor­age Ter­mi­nal, four 5,000-gal­lon tanks were erect­ed on a con­crete stand op­po­site the Clarke Rochard Sports Ground.

A su­per­vi­sor on du­ty watched as trucks en­tered and left the site.

Dur­ing the 30 min­utes we spent at the ter­mi­nal, our news crew saw one truck ex­tract­ing wa­ter from the tanks.

We fol­lowed a white truck to Pla­tan­ite Trace, where rows of wa­ter tanks and blue bar­rels lined every yard.

As the truck dri­ver pumped wa­ter in­to a res­i­dent’s tank, he said it was his third de­liv­ery for the morn­ing.

In one day, the dri­ver said he de­liv­ers sev­en truck­loads of wa­ter to res­i­dents.

Guardian Me­dia was told that a truck de­liv­er­ing 1,200 gal­lons of wa­ter in Port-of-Spain is paid $413 per trip with­out a loader.

With a loader, the cost in­creas­es to $452.

The loader runs the hose to fill the tanks.

In the South, the rate for a trip is $543.

How­ev­er, trucks that fill the tank farms with less than 1,200 gal­lons get $1,150 per trip.

A stone’s throw from where the wa­ter was be­ing de­liv­ered, res­i­dent Am­rit Ram­s­ingh said the com­mu­ni­ty on­ly re­ceives pipe-borne wa­ter three days a month.

“The eight years I’ve been liv­ing here, we al­ways had wa­ter is­sues. Noth­ing has changed.”

Ram­s­ingh said he thought the com­mu­ni­ty would have re­ceived an im­proved wa­ter sup­ply when the tank farms came on stream.

But this wasn’t the case.

“We could on­ly get one tank every month. I am not sure of the rea­son why,” Ram­s­ingh said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to WASA’s Cus­tomer Con­tact Cen­tre, where a rep­re­sen­ta­tive ex­plained that WASA cus­tomers who are not in ar­rears would re­ceive one truck­load per week.

Ram­s­ingh said he was dis­ap­point­ed by the re­stric­tion, say­ing peo­ple can’t clean their homes prop­er­ly for Di­vali.

He ad­mit­ted that ra­tioning wa­ter for bathing, laun­dry, cook­ing and clean­ing is nev­er easy.

“The de­mand for wa­ter in the com­mu­ni­ty is high.”

When his wa­ter sup­ply runs low, Ram­s­ingh said he would buy 1,000 gal­lons for $350.

“Peo­ple are still buy­ing wa­ter. It’s a bad thing be­cause you still have to pay your WASA bills. What we need is wa­ter in our pipes.”

Fur­ther up the street, April Khan, who man­ages a shel­ter for 100 stray and aban­doned an­i­mals, said that when­ev­er she called WASA for a truck-borne sup­ply, it would be de­liv­ered days lat­er.

“That takes too long. I have to keep my place san­i­tary and hy­gien­ic with these an­i­mals.”

Every month, Khan buys $900 in wa­ter from a pri­vate truck.

She pays $300 for 800 gal­lons.

“I find that re­al­ly ridicu­lous.”

Last week, Khan said she col­lect­ed rain­wa­ter to wash down her shel­ter.

Not far away, pen­sion­er Ralph Ed­ward, 71, who lives on an in­cline, said he re­ceived no wa­ter in his taps for weeks.

“Some­thing is wrong. I know we are go­ing through a harsh dry sea­son, but in the last month I ain’t get a drop of wa­ter. I am suf­fer­ing in my old age,” Ed­ward said.

Ed­ward nev­er re­quest­ed truck-borne wa­ter from WASA, as he has no tank.

“My tank burst, and I have no mon­ey to buy back one. Is re­al pres­sure. Some­times I does have to beg peo­ple for wa­ter.”

At the Teemul Trace Cen­tralised Wa­ter Stor­age Ter­mi­nal, trucks were seen con­nect­ing hoses to the pip­ing sys­tem to both de­posit and ex­tract wa­ter from the four 5,000-gal­lon tanks.

A loader ad­mit­ted to de­posit­ing 2,400 gal­lons of wa­ter in­to the tanks.

When we en­quired from one truck dri­ver which com­pa­ny he worked for, he ad­vised us to con­tact WASA’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment for a re­sponse.

At the third Cen­tralised Wa­ter Stor­age Ter­mi­nal at Pe­nal-Quinam, trucks were al­so wait­ing to of­fload and ex­tract wa­ter from the four 5,000-gal­lon tanks.

We trailed two of the trucks to see where they were sourc­ing the wa­ter.

They both pulled in­to WASA’s Pe­nal/Debe Wa­ter Truck­ing Fa­cil­i­ty on the M2 Ring Road in Debe to get the trucks filled.

On Fri­day, Guardian Me­dia asked Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj if the cor­po­ra­tion’s wa­ter trucks have been fill­ing or ex­tract­ing wa­ter at any of the tank farms in the South.

Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion has “one old truck” which pro­vides wa­ter to life­guards, mar­kets, schools and fire sta­tions.

Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion pro­vides this ser­vice to “non-WASA cus­tomers. Our truck doesn’t de­posit wa­ter in­to the tank farms. That is a WASA arrange­ment.”

The cor­po­ra­tion was al­lo­cat­ed $700,000 for wa­ter truck­ing ser­vice for 2027.

Last year, the cor­po­ra­tion re­ceived the same al­lo­ca­tion.

May­or of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Dood­nath Mayrhoo said his cor­po­ra­tion has two trucks which sup­ply wa­ter to recre­ation­al grounds, schools, and church­es.

Mayrhoo said he has re­ceived no re­quest for the cor­po­ra­tion’s trucks to fill or ex­tract wa­ter from any of the tank farms in South.

In the 2027 Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue and Ex­pen­di­ture of Statu­to­ry Boards, Sim­i­lar Bod­ies and THA, the bor­ough re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $200,000 for wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices.

This fig­ure was a slight in­crease from the $188,000 the bor­ough was pro­vid­ed in 2026.

‘Rain­wa­ter sav­ing us here’

Guardian Me­dia al­so vis­it­ed the con­stituen­cy of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, where we ob­served land grad­ing at one cor­ner of the Howsen Recre­ation­al Grounds in Coryal for con­struc­tion of a tank farm.

One res­i­dent who iden­ti­fied him­self as Si­mon ob­ject­ed to a shed on the grounds, which had to be de­mol­ished to make room for the tank farm.

“It have land fur­ther up the road they could have used for the tank farm. They come and mash up the shed just so. This is what peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty used to shel­ter when we have sport­ing events,” he com­plained.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said, giv­en their wa­ter woes, they wel­comed the tank farm.

“To me, wa­ter is more im­por­tant than a shed.”

A work­er on the job site dis­closed that WASA will in­stall six 5,000-gal­lon tanks this month.

“Hope­ful­ly we will cast the foun­da­tion next week,” the work­er said.

Not far from the job site, res­i­dents along Bon Air Road cried out for wa­ter.

Since 2009, they have not re­ceived a reg­u­lar sup­ply due to WASA’s age­ing pipelines.

The wa­ter comes once a week or once every 14 days.

“We get wa­ter late at night, and at dawn our taps are dry again. It’s frus­trat­ing,” one res­i­dent said.

The last time wa­ter flowed through Janae Mitchell’s taps was Oc­to­ber 22.

“Imag­ine 13 days with­out wa­ter,” said Mitchell, who lives along Cu­mu­to Main Road, Tamana.

“Some­times the wait­ing pe­ri­od goes as long as 18 days or three weeks. Is rain­wa­ter sav­ing us in here.”

When Mitchell’s sup­ply runs low, she would go wa­ter hunt­ing with her hus­band.

“I fed up call WASA for wa­ter.”

While these res­i­dents have en­dured years with­out a con­sis­tent sup­ply, the neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ty of Carmichael has gone with­out pipe-borne wa­ter for over a decade.

Ce­cil Cas­sar knows the hard­ship of liv­ing with­out wa­ter.

Once a week, a truck from the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion de­liv­ers wa­ter, but it’s nev­er enough.

“Some peo­ple still go with­out.”

Asked how he felt about the pro­posed tank farm in the com­mu­ni­ty, Cas­sar said, “Well, if it’s the Gov­ern­ment ... WASA it­self, who’s do­ing it, it would not be a prob­lem. But a con­trac­tor. That is a prob­lem to me. Putting that in a con­trac­tor’s hands, I feel is a big gam­ble we’re tak­ing. Be­cause too much of things go­ing on with too much of con­tracts,” Cas­sar said.

A stone’s throw from Cas­sar’s home, an el­der­ly cou­ple who sur­vive on se­nior cit­i­zen pen­sions said they spent $40,000 to build two tank stands to ac­com­mo­date their 18 tanks.

Eight of the tanks are con­nect­ed to their gut­ter­ing to col­lect rain­wa­ter.

“I can’t re­mem­ber the last day I tast­ed pipe-borne wa­ter,” said the 71-year-old man.

His wife shook her head in frus­tra­tion, stat­ing that the con­stant strug­gle for wa­ter has drained them fi­nan­cial­ly and phys­i­cal­ly.

Res­i­dent Ka­mal Jaghoo be­lieves WASA’s un­der­ground pipelines are choked.

When his tanks are emp­ty, Jaghoo, 63, said he pays a man to trans­port wa­ter to his home.

“The wa­ter is free, but I pay the man a trans­porta­tion fee of $150 for 400 gal­lons of wa­ter.”

Two weeks ago, Jaghoo re­ceived a truck-borne sup­ply of 1,600 gal­lons.

“You’re not sure when you will get wa­ter again, so you have to stretch it like elas­tic.”

He said peo­ple who are un­able to ac­cess a truck-borne sup­ply from WASA would go to near­by rivers to bathe and wash clothes.

“We are re­al­ly go­ing through a wa­ter dis­as­ter,” the pro­pri­etor said.

Sev­er­al ques­tions were sent to Min­is­ter Padarath by Guardian Me­dia on the mat­ter, but at the time of pub­li­ca­tion, there was no re­sponse.

Over $7M for tank farms

A WASA doc­u­ment ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia showed that in June, the Au­thor­i­ty com­piled a list of ten pro­posed tank farms to­talling $7,549,500.59

A break­down of the fig­ures showed three tank farms in the Siparia con­stituen­cy were es­ti­mat­ed to cost $2,279,941.25, which would ser­vice over 1,320 homes and more than 3,000 peo­ple liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties.

The ex­pen­di­ture for the Clarke Road tank farm was $706,785.45.

The tank farms in Moru­ga/Table­land were an es­ti­mat­ed $2,986,726.70, which would ben­e­fit 1,120 house­holds and over 2,000 res­i­dents.

Ma­yaro’s three tank farms to­talled $2,282,832.64, and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,000 house­holds stand to re­ceive wa­ter from this ini­tia­tive.

Up to June, no tank farms were list­ed for the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituen­cy.

Guardian Me­dia was told that a frame­work was pro­posed and a re­quest was made for a des­ig­nat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive to over­see these projects to pro­vide week­ly progress up­dates to WASA’s CEO.

Fol­low­ing con­fir­ma­tion of the re­spec­tive tank farms, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for site ac­qui­si­tion, project ex­e­cu­tion and con­tract man­age­ment would be­come the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Cap­i­tal Pro­grammes Di­vi­sion.

Some of the farms are at var­i­ous stages of plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion.

Award of con­tracts

Ten­ders award­ed on WASA’s web­site showed that sev­er­al con­trac­tors ben­e­fit­ted from the trans­porta­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of truck-borne wa­ter through­out Trinidad.

One con­tract val­ued at $15 mil­lion was award­ed to 11 com­pa­nies on De­cem­ber 19, 2025.

These com­pa­nies are Air Tech­nol­o­gy Ltd, Amp En­vi­ron­men­tal and Con­struc­tion Ltd, Cadir Wa­heed Trans­port, Fides Ltd, Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Ltd, Heer­alal Ram­padarath, Kall Co Ltd, Lenson Com­pa­ny Ltd, Reyasath Trans­port, Sat Sais and Vi­gai and Vi­jai Con­tract­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd.

On De­cem­ber 30, an­oth­er con­tract was award­ed to nine con­trac­tors val­ued at $1.6 mil­lion for trans­porta­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of truck-borne wa­ter through­out Trinidad (ad­di­tion­al con­trac­tors).

The con­trac­tors named were Kadar Cas­sir­am Ltd, BK Hold­ings Ltd, D&D Au­to World Ltd, Trav Con­trac­tors, Fides Ltd, San­gre Grande Heavy Equip­ment and Trans­porta­tion Con­struc­tion Ltd, Roy­al Gem En­ter­pris­es, G&R Bis­ram Trans­port Ltd and Na­mal­co Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd.

The com­ple­tion of this job was five weeks.

A third con­tract was award­ed on April 23, 2026, on “rates” rather than a fixed to­tal sum.

The con­trac­tors iden­ti­fied were Fides Ltd, Roy­al Gem Ltd, D&D Au­to Ltd, Jag­gerssar Agency Com­pa­ny Ltd, Kadar Cas­sir­am Ltd, San­gre Grande Heavy Equip­ment Rental and Trans­port Con­struc­tion Ltd, Trav Con­trac­tors Ltd and Trin­ba­go Evo­lu­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd.

The com­ple­tion pe­ri­od for this con­tract was June 30, 2026.

On June 25, 2026, a to­tal of 20 con­trac­tors were award­ed a con­tract for the trans­porta­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of truck-borne wa­ter through­out Trinidad for a three- month pe­ri­od “on a month-to-month ba­sis.”

The con­tract’s award val­ue was based on “rates” and not a fixed sum.

The suc­cess­ful con­trac­tors were Amp En­vi­ron­men­tal and Con­struc­tion Ltd, Cadir Wa­heed Trans­port, Fides Ltd, Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Ltd, Her­alal Ram­padarath, Lenson Com­pa­ny Ltd, Reyasath Trans­port, Bk Hold­ings Ltd, D&D Au­to World Ltd, Roy­al Gem Ltd, San­gre Grande Heavy Equip­ment Rental and Trans­port Con­struc­tion Ltd, Trav Con­trac­tors, Jag­gerssar Agency, Mainecoon Con­trac­tors Ltd, Singh’s Au­to Rental Com­pa­ny, Trin­ba­go Evo­lu­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd, Wafiq Trans­port Ltd, XP En­gi­neer­ing Ltd and Phoenix Weld­ing and Fab­ri­cat­ing Ltd.