The Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) will make a fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion on the re­view of wa­ter rates by No­vem­ber 2023.

This is ac­cord­ing to the So­cial Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (SSIP) doc­u­ment, which was laid fol­low­ing Mon­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by Fi­nance Mnis­ter Colm Im­bert in the Par­lia­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the SSIP, the RIC will pre­pare its draft de­ter­mi­na­tion for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s price re­view up­on re­ceipt of a fi­nal busi­ness plan from WASA in the 1st quar­ter of fis­cal 2023.

Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the draft will then com­mence.

The SSIP states that af­ter the pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions, the RIC’s fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion for WASA’s price re­view is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by No­vem­ber 2023.

With re­gard to the pro­vi­sion of wa­ter, it states that dur­ing the fis­cal year, re­fur­bish­ment and up­grade works will be un­der­tak­en on the fol­low­ing plants—Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, Navet Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, Gua­napo Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, North Oropouche Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, Chatham Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, Hills­bor­ough Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, and the Hol­lis Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.

It said that these works will im­prove the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of ser­vice, wa­ter qual­i­ty and sup­ply to over 400,000 per­sons from sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Ma­yaro, Co­coyea, Barack­pore Princes Town, Tabaquite and Na­pari­ma. Gua­napo, Ari­ma and en­vi­rons, Va­len­cia and Trinci­ty.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les says they will now move ahead with the WASA trans­for­ma­tion af­ter the court dis­missed the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion’s ac­tion to stop the process on Tues­day.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Fu­ture Proof 2022 launch of the T&T Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain, Gon­za­les ex­plained that the court agreed with Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that there is need for a re­struc­tur­ing.

“We cer­tain­ly can­not con­tin­ue like that. It is a man­date that was giv­en to me when I be­came min­is­ter in 2020,” Gon­za­les said.

“The PSA filed the ap­pli­ca­tion in court and they asked for an in­junc­tion to stop the trans­for­ma­tion process. The court dis­missed the in­junc­tion some­time in March this year. The sub­stan­tive mat­ter, which is the com­plaint by the PSA that the WASA was not meet­ing and treat­ing with them, not col­lab­o­rat­ing on the trans­for­ma­tion, that sub­stan­tive mat­ter was dis­missed yes­ter­day (Tues­day).

“It sim­ply means that the Gov­ern­ment now has the full go-ahead to move for­ward with the trans­for­ma­tion of the au­thor­i­ty with­out any po­ten­tial le­gal im­ped­i­ment be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court, so we are mov­ing full pace ahead.”

He con­firmed the trans­for­ma­tion plan was com­plet­ed about one month ago and passed to the board, which is at the stage of im­ple­ment­ing the var­i­ous stages of the trans­for­ma­tion.

Ad­dress­ing the pend­ing in­crease of wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates, Gon­za­les made it clear this was de­ter­mined by the RIC.

He said the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (TTEC) pur­chas­es gas from the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny be­low mar­ket prices at around a dol­lar and six­ty cents per MMB­TU.

“The price of gas on the mar­ket is some­where in the re­gion of eight dol­lars and it sim­ply means that NGC is sell­ing gas to T&TEC at con­sid­er­able loss­es to the NGC to the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of T&T and is cost­ing the Gov­ern­ment about 700 mil­lion dol­lars to buffer the im­pact of ris­ing gas prices on the price of elec­tric­i­ty,” he said.

“This is a very se­ri­ous mat­ter be­cause if TTEC were to pay NGC the eight dol­lars and that price has to be passed on to the con­sumers, you’re talk­ing about the po­ten­tial for elec­tric­i­ty rates to be dou­bled or tripled and this is a very very se­ri­ous mat­ter be­cause it can im­pact or­di­nary peo­ple in a sig­nif­i­cant way.”

Gon­za­les as­sured that the Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to al­low the RIC, the body re­spon­si­ble for re­view­ing wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates, to do its work.

“It is not the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and I would want to make it abun­dant­ly clear be­cause I would have seen cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia on the day of the Bud­get that the Gov­ern­ment in­creased elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter rates by ten per cent but noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth be­cause the Gov­ern­ment does not have the pow­er to set the rates for wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty in T&T.”

He said the RIC has been look­ing at the rates for elec­tric­i­ty and TTEC had sub­mit­ted the req­ui­site doc­u­ments to the body for the re­view process. He said the pub­lic is not go­ing to be left out of this process.

“Part of the process is pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion by the RIC, so it is not go­ing to be done in the dark. When the RIC com­pletes its process, they will rec­om­mend to the Gov­ern­ment what is an ap­pro­pri­ate price for wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty in T&T.”

He as­sured the Gov­ern­ment will then de­cide what kind of pro­tec­tion it will pro­vide for the vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens of T&T.

“The Gov­ern­ment is al­ready on record say­ing that we will have a sub­sidy struc­ture that is more tar­get­ed to­wards the more vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in so­ci­ety, whilst those who can af­ford to pay close to mar­ket rate for wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty, they will be al­lowed to pay the mar­ket rate.

“How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment will be util­is­ing a cash card sys­tem to sup­port vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies and vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens in T&T with re­spect to the po­ten­tial for any in­crease cost in wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty as may be rec­om­mend­ed by the RIC.”