A se­nior of­fi­cial at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion on al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct for mis­lead­ing Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les about wa­ter sched­ul­ing in Paramin.

The probe is the sec­ond to take place by WASA against the se­nior of­fi­cial in a mat­ter of weeks.

Last De­cem­ber, the Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that frus­trat­ed Paramin res­i­dents had reached out to Gon­za­les to com­plain they had not re­ceived a wa­ter sup­ply in weeks and plead­ed for his in­ter­ven­tion.

Up­on in­quir­ing, Gon­za­les was told that WASA need­ed to sort out some tech­ni­cal is­sues.

Then, he got a re­port that the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty was re­ceiv­ing a pipe-borne sup­ply.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les said the res­i­dents kept telling him their taps were still dry since No­vem­ber.

Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, set up a meet­ing with the af­fect­ed res­i­dents, the se­nior of­fi­cial and a WASA man­age­ment team to get to the root of the prob­lem on­ly to find out that the res­i­dents had been speak­ing the truth about their sup­ply be­ing dis­rupt­ed for weeks.

Gon­za­les came to the con­clu­sion that he was de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­led and de­ceived by the se­nior of­fi­cial.

What was al­so dis­turb­ing, Gon­za­les said was that no dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion had been tak­en against the em­ploy­ee, stat­ing that in any se­ri­ous or­gan­i­sa­tion the em­ploy­ee would have been sus­pend­ed.

He al­so told the Sun­day Guardian that some man­agers work­ing in var­i­ous re­gions had not been in­form­ing their boss­es about prob­lems on the ground so cor­rec­tive ac­tion can be tak­en.

How­ev­er, the min­is­ter’s re­ac­tion sparked an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion by WASA on al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct.

On Feb­ru­ary 17, WASA is­sued a let­ter to the se­nior of­fi­cial.

The let­ter ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia was sent by WASA’s Head, Em­ploy­ee and Labour Re­la­tions, Marielle Hi­laire and copied to act­ing di­rec­tor of op­er­a­tions Sher­land Shep­pard and act­ing di­rec­tor of hu­man re­sources May Ann Di­az.

“The In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions de­part­ment is in re­ceipt of (an) in­ves­tiga­tive re­port dat­ed De­cem­ber 23, 2020. The ini­tial find­ings high­light un­pro­fes­sion­al, in­ac­cu­ra­cies and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion by your­self as it is al­leged that you er­ro­neous­ly ad­vised the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties that the area was in re­ceipt of a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply there­by act­ing con­trary to the Code of Ethics and Busi­ness Con­duct,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The let­ter fur­ther ex­plained that based on the na­ture of the afore­men­tioned and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions to the au­thor­i­ty “an in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be con­duct­ed to as­cer­tain the le­git­i­ma­cy of claims of mis­con­duct.”

Hi­laire in­formed the se­nior of­fi­cial that Raf­fie David, Head Waste­water Projects, has been ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate and re­port on the al­le­ga­tions.

Guardian Me­dia was told the se­nior of­fi­cial has been em­ployed with WASA for over 15 years.

WASA ad­vised the se­nior of­fi­cial to give David his fullest co­op­er­a­tion.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les re­fused to com­ment on the mat­ter, while calls to WASA’s act­ing CEO Alan Poon King’s cell­phone went unan­swered.