At a time when the country is engrossed in the possible fallout of the Petrotrin refinery closure, comes word that monthly salaries at the state-run Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) run at more than $91 million. This pays some 5,150 permanent employees and includes temporary and contract workers and means in one year the authority spends over $1.1 billion in salaries alone.
WASA chairman Romney Thomas gave those figures in response to questions from the Sunday Guardian about the authority’s wage bill.
“Average monthly salary and wages $91.475m,” Thomas wrote via Whatsapp.
Asked for clarification if the amount was $91 million, he replied, “Yep.”
During a recent report, the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said WASA is overstaffed by some 2,000 employees. The committee said in the last fiscal year, WASA’s expenditure amounted to $2.88 billion while its income for the same period was $709 million. The shortfall of $1.9 billion was covered by a government subvention.
Over the last decade, government has forked out $10 billion in subventions to WASA.
At a time when there is more scrutiny on the way money is spent at state-owned enterprises, WASA’s financial figures raise many concerns.
The Regulated Industries Commission (RIC) was supposed to review WASA’s financial statements to begin a rate review earlier this year, but that has not been done as the RIC says they don’t have the information they need to begin the process.
A source at the RIC told the Sunday Guardian that even if a rate review began on September 27, it would not be completed before the end of January 2019.
Until then, citizens will continue to pay 31 cents US per cubic metre of water—almost a third of the regional benchmark price of US$1 per cubic metre of water, leaving little hope that a rate increase can start to bridge the gap in the authority’s income and expenditure in the near future.
The authority also continues to lose water every day, as its ageing infrastructure needs a $3 billion cash injection for repairs and replacement of transmission and distribution lines.
In June, most citizens were shocked to learn that Petrotrin’s wage bill amounted to some $2.19 billion yearly or an average of $45,000 per employee monthly (see sidebar). At the time, Energy Minister Franklin Khan said the closure of Petrotrin was in part brought on by the exorbitant wage bill.
Yesterday, Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte told the Sunday Guardian he is well aware of WASA’s wage bill.
“Of course, I get reports from WASA on a monthly and a quarterly basis, so I am fully aware of WASA’s position. I am aware and stay in touch with my board, as a minister I am very hands-on,” he said.
Le Hunte declined to answer when asked if he believes a monthly $91 million wage bill is sustainable given the country’s current economic situation and especially in light of the move to shut down Petrotrin’s refinery operations because it is draining the country’s finances. Instead, he reiterated that his focus at WASA is not retrenching workers but cutting out contractors to save money.
Speaking in Parliament earlier this week, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley also said Government is not at this time considering any staff reductions at WASA or the T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC).
“If you’re paying employees and contractors also and you focus on removing contractors and let workers do the job they’re paid for, you’re saving money,” Rowley said.
“WASA wasn’t created to create jobs but to supply water. If you have people being paid twice for the same job, the consideration isn’t reducing jobs by contractors, but using them where they’re absolutely necessary and letting employees on the payroll do the jobs.”
Again reinforcing the PM’s stance on the state entity yesterday, Le Hunte said, “I think the Prime Minister was clear about the intention to deal with any WASA workers—he made his statement very clear—the focus of our activity at WASA is utilising the workers that we have at WASA to deal with the inherited issues that we got at WASA in trying to fix the leaks, to fix the problems at WASA. I don’t where whether the bill is this, whether the bill is that, this is what we are doing.”
The Petrotrin comparison
In June, Petrotrin’s board put out ads in the daily newspapers revealing its annual $4.15 billion in operating costs.
Two months later, on August 28, Petrotrin chairman Wilfred Espinet described the company’s refinery as a cancer and announced its closure. On Friday, Espinet announced that Petrotrin would cease all operations on November 30 and its employees would be given their exit packages on that day.
The state-owned oil giant has 3,437 permanent employees and 1,229 temporary employees. In June the company said its wage bill made up 52.8 per cent of that cost or $2.19 billion.
The average monthly salary of a permanent employee is $45,000 while temporary employees have an average salary of $21,000 monthly, the company said. The company also revealed its overtime bill for 2016 and 2017 was an average $22.7 million per month.
Speaking about the Petrotrin restructuring at a People’s National Movement meeting in Marabella on September 6, Energy Minister Franklin Khan said there was a carpenter at Petrotrin who earned $70,000 in overtime in one month.
Khan said Petrotrin workers were “by and large responsible for their own demise.”