Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@
guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has apol­o­gised to res­i­dents of Morne Di­a­blo for a wa­ter truck­ing scam which re­sult­ed in them pay­ing for wa­ter for years.

Gon­za­les, who of­fered the apol­o­gy at the for­mal com­mis­sion­ing of the re­cent­ly com­plet­ed Morne Di­a­blo Wa­ter Sup­ply Im­prove­ment Project in Pe­nal on Sat­ur­day, al­so took WASA and po­lit­i­cal of­fi­cials to task.

He said the res­i­dents did not have a re­li­able sup­ply of wa­ter for more than two decades, not be­cause of in­fra­struc­ture or a re­duced sup­ply from WASA but due to “a well-oiled crim­i­nal wa­ter truck­ing rack­et.”

The min­is­ter ex­pressed con­cern that it hap­pened “right un­der the noses” of var­i­ous lo­cal gov­ern­ment and par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with no in­ter­ven­tion. He said he found out about it in a text mes­sage from a res­i­dent.

“How could it have tak­en place un­der the noses of the lead­er­ship of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty? Who was re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that you had a suf­fi­cient sup­ply of wa­ter? To me that is the per­fect ex­am­ple of lead­ers and pub­lic of­fi­cials turn­ing away from their oath of of­fice to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Gon­za­les said.

“And for that rea­son, I think it is in­cum­bent on me in my ca­pac­i­ty as the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and a mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and as well, not be­ing po­lit­i­cal but I have to say it, of the PNM, to sin­cere­ly apol­o­gise to you for the des­e­cra­tion that you would have en­dured over the last 20 years.”

Gon­za­les said he was ac­com­pa­nied to the func­tion by Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings and Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Si­mon De No­bri­ga be­cause they recog­nised the se­ri­ous­ness of the mat­ter and are de­ter­mined to see the sit­u­a­tion ful­ly re­solved and every res­i­dent gets wa­ter.

He added that since their in­ter­ven­tion, more than 90 per cent of the com­mu­ni­ty has been re­ceiv­ing a sup­ply of wa­ter.

Gon­za­les said he was ad­vised that ad­di­tion­al wells will have to be drilled in the ar­eas that are yet to re­ceive a reg­u­lar sup­ply.

Last month, the min­is­ter ex­posed the wa­ter truck­ing scam in which op­er­a­tors have been lock­ing off WASA valves, forc­ing res­i­dents of Morne Di­a­blo to buy wa­ter for be­tween $300 and $600 per truck­load.

The op­er­a­tors si­phoned un­treat­ed wa­ter from WASA’s wells in re­mote ar­eas.

While Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­vised that the po­lice should guard the valves, Gon­za­les said res­i­dents al­so have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to guard gov­ern­ment in­vest­ments. He said many of the peo­ple in­volved in cor­rup­tion have friends op­er­at­ing in po­lit­i­cal cir­cles.

“The rea­son why they have sur­vived for over two decades is be­cause they have friends who op­er­ate in high lev­els of so­ci­ety who work to­geth­er. They are pro­tect­ed and that is why you the peo­ple of Morne Di­a­blo can pay them for wa­ter that should be reach­ing your taps on a reg­u­lar ba­sis,” he said.

Gon­za­les could not say how many peo­ple were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for the rack­et, but he said some were em­ployed at the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion. The mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by WASA and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The Morne Di­a­blo Wa­ter Sup­ply Im­prove­ment Project has re­sult­ed in im­proved ser­vice to more than 500 house­holds.