Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The top man­age­ment struc­ture for the 34 high­est lead­er­ship posts in the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been ap­proved in its or­gan­i­sa­tion re­design process. And while peo­ple have been iden­ti­fied to fill the nine top posts, no de­ci­sion has been tak­en to ear­mark 200 man­agers for sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les gave the in­for­ma­tion to the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

He was re­ply­ing to UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s query on when the ex­ec­u­tive pack­ages of “ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 re­trenched” WASA man­agers would take ef­fect, as part of what Mark claimed was WASA’s re­struc­tur­ing ex­er­cise to form a new “Wa­ter Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny.” Gon­za­les said, “This ques­tion is based on a false premise since no de­ci­sion has been tak­en to form a new Wa­ter Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny.

“With re­spect to the pro­posed re­struc­tur­ing of (WASA) sev­er­al re­ports, in­clud­ing the 2020 re­port of the Cab­i­net Sub­com­mit­tee on WASA, which was tabled in Par­lia­ment, have in­di­cat­ed that WASA’s top man­age­ment is gross­ly over­staffed and needs to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced, a po­si­tion with which I con­cur.

“In this re­gard, the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s re­design process has been guid­ed by the de­vel­op­ment of a trans­for­ma­tion plan. The top man­age­ment struc­ture for the 34 top lead­er­ship po­si­tions has been ap­proved, and the Hu­man Re­source Sub­com­mit­tee of Cab­i­net is still de­ter­min­ing the com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages.”

Gon­za­les said peo­ple have been iden­ti­fied for the fill­ing of the fol­low­ing nine top lead­er­ship po­si­tions:

● ↓Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Cor­po­rate Fi­nance;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Peo­ple, Trans­for­ma­tion, and Cen­tral Ser­vices;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Tech­nol­o­gy, Fu­ture Sys­tems and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Wa­ter Man­age­ment To­ba­go;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Wa­ter Man­age­ment North­west;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Wa­ter Man­age­ment North­east;

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Wa­ter Man­age­ment South; and

● ↓Di­rec­tor, Wa­ter Man­age­ment Cen­tral.

He added, “Once the top lead­er­ship has been con­trac­tu­al­ly en­gaged, the next lev­els of man­age­ment will be re­struc­tured, guid­ed by the trans­for­ma­tion plan. The top lead­er­ship will par­tic­i­pate in the de­ci­sion in re­la­tion to the next lev­el of man­age­ment.

“For those po­si­tions that fall with­in the bar­gain­ing units, there will be con­sul­ta­tion with the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union. Un­til that con­sul­ta­tion takes place, there will be no fi­nal de­ci­sion with re­spect to the pre­cise size of the man­age­ment team and the var­i­ous op­tions for sep­a­ra­tion which will be agreed up­on be­tween the au­thor­i­ty and the rep­re­sen­ta­tive union.”

On Mark’s query if any de­ci­sion has been tak­en in the re­struc­tur­ing/trans­for­ma­tion plan to ear­mark 200 man­agers for sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages, Gon­za­les said, “The an­swer to that ques­tion is no.” He al­so said Mark’s claim of a new en­ti­ty called the ‘Wa­ter Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny’ to re­place WASA was “UNC fool­ish­ness!”

When Mark asked if the re­struc­tur­ing and trans­for­ma­tion plan in­clud­ed the ex­pec­ta­tion that 3,000 work­ers might be re­trenched, Gon­za­les re­mind­ed Mark that it was a 2013 doc­u­ment sub­mit­ted by the UNC gov­ern­ment to the IDB, which sought $1.5 bil­lion for the dis­missal of 2,500 WASA work­ers.

“It was on that doc­u­ment signed by (WASA) CEO Gan­ga Singh, who ap­proached the IDB and in­di­cat­ed that he was go­ing to re­struc­ture WASA, and on that ba­sis, 2,500 work­ers would be dis­missed from WASA,” Gon­za­les added.

He said it got even worse when the UNC gov­ern­ment got $500 mil­lion to en­gage in a VSEP pack­age to sep­a­rate 1,000 work­ers. “... And as they ex­it­ed WASA, they en­tered by an­oth­er door, cost­ing tax­pay­ers over $500 mil­lion—a scan­dalous waste of mon­ey!” Gon­za­les added. Mark said, “Time will tell,” on re­trench­ment.