There are cur­rent­ly no plans to pri­va­tise any of the three state util­i­ty com­pa­nies but if the Gov­ern­ment can be con­vinced that move will be prof­itable, that po­si­tion can change in the fu­ture.

This ac­cord­ing to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

He was speak­ing to CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew host Na­talee Legore on Wednes­day morn­ing when Legore asked him to ad­dress ru­mours that the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) might be head­ing to­wards pri­vati­sa­tion.

Gon­za­les said there were no plans to pri­va­tise T&TEC, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) or the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT.)

But Gon­za­les added, “Un­less or un­til we can see some ben­e­fit or con­vinced in some form or fash­ion that there might be need for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion for pri­vate part­ner­ship to make those com­pa­nies more vi­able and pro­duc­tive but at this time, the da­ta is not to pri­va­tise WASA or T&TEC.”

Gon­za­les spoke at length about the is­sues fac­ing WASA as he said his most im­por­tant man­date is to en­sure a 24/7 wa­ter sup­ply for the en­tire coun­try as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

In a Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee re­port in 2018, there was said to be a sur­plus of 2,000 em­ploy­ees at WASA.

The au­thor­i­ty was said to have a wage bill above $91 mil­lion a month and was in mas­sive debt- earn­ing $709 mil­lion in 2017 while spend­ing $2.88 bil­lion in the same pe­ri­od.

The short­fall of $1.9 bil­lion was cov­ered with a Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion. In the three years since, the fi­nan­cials at the state-owned wa­ter com­pa­ny have not im­proved and nei­ther has its abil­i­ty to pro­vide a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply to the coun­try.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Legore asked Gon­za­les whether there would be job cuts at WASA.

She said there were re­ports that the au­thor­i­ty was over­staffed by 4,000 em­ploy­ees.

Gon­za­les de­nied this, say­ing, “From the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to me cur­rent­ly has 4,800 work­ers or let us say, 4,900 work­ers. How on earth can you re­trench 4,000 in the au­thor­i­ty and leave prob­a­bly 800 peo­ple to run the au­thor­i­ty? So there can­not be any truth to the fact that WASA is over­sized by 4,000 work­ers be­cause you just sim­ply have about 4,800 work­ers in the util­i­ty com­pa­ny.”

He said re­trench­ment is not the quick fix for the prob­lems plagu­ing the au­thor­i­ty. Gon­za­les said WASA has suf­fered un­der poor man­age­ment and while he said a man­pow­er au­dit should be done soon, he said WASA’s board will like­ly be re­placed be­fore work­ers are sent home.

.”