Raphael John-Lall

Pro­fes­sor of Wa­ter Re­sources Man­age­ment and In­fra­struc­ture at the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al Uni­ver­si­ty (RAU), Unit­ed King­dom, Ki­ran To­ta-Ma­haraj be­lieves that the new Gov­ern­ment’s plan to get rid of the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plan for Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is a “bold step.”

Ac­cord­ing to a WASA me­dia re­lease in 2022, the plan was an­chored on three pil­lars: or­gan­i­sa­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion, net­work op­ti­mi­sa­tion and an ex­pan­sion of the wa­ter sup­ply.

The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Bar­ry Padarath has made it clear that the Gov­ern­ment will get rid of the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) trans­for­ma­tion plan for the WASA.

How­ev­er, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised the move say­ing that it would on­ly lead to in­ef­fi­cien­cy and cor­rup­tion in WASA.

Two weeks ago, speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence about the trans­for­ma­tion pro­gramme, which ad­dressed the ex­ec­u­tive lev­el of WASA, Gon­za­les said: “With the fill­ing of the key ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions with­in the au­tho­ri­ty, it would cost the tax­pay­ers of this coun­try a month­ly cost of $2 mil­lion and an an­nu­al cost of $24 mil­lion.”

He said the re­duc­tion at the man­age­ment lev­el from 422 to 246 per­sons and the cost sav­ings af­ter that ex­e­cu­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion would have re­sult­ed in sav­ings of over $43 mil­lion at WASA an­nu­al­ly.

Min­is­ter Padarath said he is still await­ing in­struc­tions on how Gov­ern­ment will pro­ceed with plans to dis­miss 34 ex­ec­u­tives who were brought on by Gon­za­les to over­see the now de­funct trans­for­ma­tion plan.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing on May 15, Padarath said this will re­sult in sav­ings of around $30 mil­lion for the State.

This de­bate is more than just a po­lit­i­cal de­bate and even an aca­d­e­m­ic one as wa­ter is an im­por­tant re­source for any econ­o­my.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic and Cul­tur­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion (UN­ESCO) in its Unit­ed Na­tions World Wa­ter De­vel­op­ment Re­port 2021 not­ed: “The val­ue of wa­ter to agri­cul­ture, in­dus­try, busi­ness and en­er­gy can be as­sessed though an eco­nom­ic in­put–out­put per­spec­tive that var­i­ous­ly quan­ti­fies re­turns or ben­e­fits, such as em­ploy­ment, prod­uct val­ue per unit of wa­ter or prod­uct val­ue-added.”

Re­struc­tur­ing im­por­tant

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, To­ta-Ma­haraj said the new Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s WASA trans­for­ma­tion plan is a “strong, pow­er­ful, and bold move.”

“While re­struc­tur­ing ef­forts are nec­es­sary, the ef­fec­tive­ness of the dis­card­ed plan re­mains de­bat­able. The for­mer trans­for­ma­tion plan al­so fo­cussed on re­duc­ing WASA’s work­force and re­struc­tur­ing man­age­ment, but one can ar­gue it did not ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress core wa­ter/waste­water crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture and ser­vice de­liv­ery is­sues,” he said.

He added that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ac­tions are ap­pro­pri­ate with the elim­i­na­tion of ex­ces­sive WASA ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions, un­qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als and sav­ing $30 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, which could be redi­rect­ed to­ward im­prov­ing wa­ter ac­cess for sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties.

“These ‘so-called WASA pro­fes­sion­als & ex­ec­u­tives’ need to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed for wrong­do­ings, and im­me­di­ate­ly re­placed with pro­fes­sion­al en­gi­neers, sci­en­tists and com­pe­tent cer­ti­fied per­son­nel work­ing at the util­i­ties in­clud­ing well-trained sup­port staff such as tech­ni­cians, elec­tri­cians, me­chan­ics and op­er­a­tors to re­pair, op­er­ate, main­tain, and trans­form WASA to a mod­ern util­i­ty.”

He said the suc­cess of this ap­proach de­pends on whether the new poli­cies pri­ori­tise long-term in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy rather than just cost-cut­ting mea­sures.

Wa­ter sup­ply

He al­so com­ment­ed on what per­cent­age of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion ac­tu­al­ly re­ceives a 24-hour wa­ter sup­ply dai­ly.

WASA, in a me­dia re­lease last week, said a mere 27 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion re­ceives a 24-hour wa­ter sup­ply dai­ly, con­tra­dict­ing sta­tis­tics giv­en by Gon­za­les who had giv­en a fig­ure of 61 per cent in May.

Weigh­ing in on the mat­ter, To­ta-Ma­haraj said the re­cent dis­clo­sure that on­ly 27 per cent of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion re­ceives a con­tin­u­ous 24-hour wa­ter sup­ply is “con­cern­ing.”

“This fig­ure stark­ly con­trasts with the 61 per cent pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed by the for­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties. The pre­vi­ous WASA ad­min­is­tra­tion has ac­knowl­edged the is­sues of cir­ca 50 per­cent of potable wa­ter sup­ply is lost to leaks and wa­ter theft. More­over, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) high­light­ed in 2021 that most wa­ter treat­ment works across T&T have Non-Rev­enue Wa­ter loss (NRW) lev­els of over 40 per­cent, with some ar­eas as high as 75 per­cent. This prob­lem re­mains sub­stan­tial and is ridicu­lous for the most de­vel­oped Caribbean na­tion, what an em­bar­rass­ment!”

Re­gard­ing ac­cu­ra­cy of wa­ter sup­ply da­ta, he said the pre­vi­ous WASA ad­min­is­tra­tion states that its of­fi­cial fig­ures are de­rived from rig­or­ous mon­i­tor­ing and re­port­ing mech­a­nisms which he ar­gued is ques­tion­able on ac­cu­ra­cy, re­li­a­bil­i­ty and far from the truth.

“With­out a ful­ly com­pre­hen­sive wa­ter me­ter­ing sys­tem, there are se­ri­ous lim­i­ta­tions in track­ing ac­tu­al wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion across the net­work and the WASA ad­min­is­tra­tion for the past 9.5 years, ac­knowl­edges these sys­temic chal­lenges. es­pe­cial­ly its op­er­a­tional in­ef­fi­cien­cies which con­tin­ue to plague ser­vice re­li­a­bil­i­ty.”

He added that while the dis­crep­an­cy is not sur­pris­ing, it re­flects the long-stand­ing decade of sys­temic chal­lenges with­in WASA, in­clud­ing:

- Ag­ing in­fra­struc­ture – many pipelines and treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties are out­dat­ed, lead­ing to in­ef­fi­cien­cies and fre­quent ser­vice dis­rup­tions;

- Cli­mate im­pacts – Vari­abil­i­ty in rain­fall lev­els and chang­ing weath­er pat­terns have af­fect­ed wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty. The use of Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) mod­els on pre­dictabil­i­ty of rain­fall and pre­cip­i­ta­tion lev­els can aid fore­cast as well as de­ci­sion mak­ing process­es;

- Op­er­a­tional in­ef­fi­cien­cies – poor re­source man­age­ment, leak­ages, and dis­tri­b­u­tion chal­lenges have hin­dered ser­vice re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

- Gov­er­nance and fi­nan­cial con­straints – his­tor­i­cal mis­man­age­ment over the past decade and un­der­fund­ing have lim­it­ed WASA’s abil­i­ty to im­ple­ment sus­tain­able im­prove­ments.

He al­so said the de­crease in wa­ter pro­duc­tion from Wa­ter Treat­ment Plants (WTPs), al­so re­ferred to as Wa­ter Treat­ment Works (WTWs) at ma­jor fa­cil­i­ties at Ca­roni, North Oropouche and the Navet dam/reser­voir re­quires ur­gent re­fur­bish­ment and up­grades due to in­creas­es in wa­ter loss from­leaks in trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion pipelines, com­plex and un­equal wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion, wa­ter truck­ing in­ef­fi­cien­cies and ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

REC­OM­MEN­DA­TIONS

To­ta-Ma­haraj said to tru­ly trans­form WASA in­to an or­gan­i­sa­tion that en­sures uni­ver­sal wa­ter ac­cess, es­sen­tial rec­om­men­da­tions to the new board, a new and qual­i­fied CEO and the new Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties need to en­sure wa­ter sup­ply and waste­water man­age­ment di­rect­ly in line with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (UNS­DG):

- In­fra­struc­ture Mod­erni­sa­tion – pri­ori­tise pipeline re­place­ments, leak de­tec­tion pro­grams, and treat­ment fa­cil­i­ty up­grades to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy

- Smart Wa­ter & Waste­water Man­age­ment – im­ple­ment dig­i­tal mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems to track wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion and re­duce wastage in­clud­ing Non-Rev­enue Wa­ter (NRW)

- Pub­lic-Pri­vate Part­ner­ships– Col­lab­o­rate with in­dus­try ex­perts and in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter man­age­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions to bring in best prac­tices and fund­ing for ex­am­ple the role of the Wa­ter Re­search Cen­tre Ltd (WRc Group) in the UK with all ma­jor wa­ter util­i­ties.

- Com­mu­ni­ty En­gage­ment & Trans­paren­cy – En­sure clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the pub­lic and all stake­hold­ers re­gard­ing ser­vice im­prove­ments ad­dress­ing these chal­lenges

- Sus­tain­able Wa­ter Re­source Plan­ning – Ad­dress cli­mate re­silience by in­vest­ing in rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, Sus­tain­able Drainage Sys­tems (SuDS), de­sali­na­tion, and ground­wa­ter man­age­ment in­clud­ing aquifer recharge.

To­ta-Ma­haraj con­clud­ed by say­ing that WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion must go be­yond the “squan­dered decade of po­lit­i­cal mis­chief” and fo­cus on tech­ni­cal, fi­nan­cial, and en­vi­ron­men­tal ef­fi­cien­cy to tru­ly achieve sus­tain­abil­i­ty in this sec­tor.

“This new Gov­ern­ment, which has been en­dorsed by 67 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing the unions, has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­build trust in the wa­ter sec­tor by en­sur­ing trans­par­ent gov­er­nance, ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tions, and eq­ui­table wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion. If ex­e­cut­ed cor­rect­ly, these re­forms could set a prece­dent for wa­ter jus­tice and in­fra­struc­ture re­silience in the re­gion.”