SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has launched a scathing at­tack on Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her scan­dalous claims that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is de­priv­ing Morne Di­a­blo res­i­dents of wa­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to im­me­di­ate­ly apol­o­gise to the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty, in­sist­ing her state­ment was an “act of des­per­a­tion” to gar­ner votes in the June 17 by-elec­tion for the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo dis­trict.

The elec­toral dis­trict be­came va­cant af­ter the death of UNC coun­cil­lor Diptee Ram­nath last De­cem­ber.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­fu­ri­at­ed Gon­za­les when she mount­ed a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) plat­form in Morne Di­a­blo on Sat­ur­day, stat­ing that in spite of high food prices, cor­rup­tion and un­em­ploy­ment the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was “shame­less” to ask cit­i­zens to vote for them in the by-elec­tion.

She al­so wad­ed in­to WASA, in­sist­ing the coun­try was fac­ing a wa­ter cri­sis that “made me feel as if I was liv­ing in the 1800s in a time of back­ward­ness and ne­glect”.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader spoke to sup­port­ers about Quinam/More Di­a­blo be­ing starved for wa­ter by the PNM.

“They try to come and ma­m­aguy you ... The Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les.”

Not­ing Gon­za­les had come in­to the com­mu­ni­ty to put a pipeline in Morne Di­a­blo, Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked, “Any­body re­mem­ber that? Not long ago … to run a wa­ter line. Ma­m­aguay.”

She said what WASA in fact did was run one mile of pipeline from Scott’s Road to Morne Di­a­blo.

The Siparia MP claimed Gon­za­les com­mis­sioned the pipeline know­ing that a by-elec­tion was due short­ly.

“So they are a fool by their tricks. Do not be fooled. And since they run the wa­ter line they prob­a­bly get wa­ter that day alone. And af­ter that ... no wa­ter in the line. Pap­pyshow ... ma­m­aguay. Don’t get chained up,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar, adding high­er up in Morne Di­a­blo “no wa­ter was run­ning in that line”.

The res­i­dents, she said, were lucky if they get wa­ter twice a month.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said one must re­mem­ber that elec­tions al­ways have con­se­quences. She al­so urged UNC sup­port­ers not to give the PNM any oxy­gen and fu­el.

She promised all cit­i­zens would get wa­ter if the UNC is re­turned to gov­ern­ment.

“When we went in­to of­fice in 2010, on­ly 18 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion of T&T was re­ceiv­ing a 24/7 sup­ply,” she said.

Back then, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said WASA was sup­ply­ing 69 per cent of the coun­try with a 24/7 sup­ply.

“We did it once ... we can do it again with your help.”

But Gon­za­les shot back at Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, say­ing the peo­ple of Morne Di­a­blo had “suf­fered as a re­sult of her lead­er­ship and rep­re­sen­ta­tion for two decades” be­cause they nev­er got wa­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment she led.

Morne Di­a­blo falls with­in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Siparia con­stituen­cy.

“She turned a blind eye to the suf­fer­ings of the peo­ple, who en­dured a wa­ter truck­ing rack­et for two decades and she should be ashamed to go there and en­ter­tain the top­ic of wa­ter sup­ply,” Gon­za­les said.

He said 5,000 res­i­dents moved from lit­tle to no wa­ter to a reg­u­lar sched­ule un­der the PNM.

In March, WASA dis­cov­ered a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar wa­ter truck­ing rack­et in Morne Di­a­blo. This was af­ter hun­dreds of res­i­dents in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty had com­plained of be­ing forced to pay pri­vate truck op­er­a­tors be­tween $300 to $600 a truck­load of wa­ter as their wa­ter sup­ply was re­li­gious­ly turned off by the il­le­gal op­er­a­tors. Short­ly af­ter, WASA al­so start­ed in­stalling 2.4 kilo­me­tres of pipeline to al­le­vi­ate the prob­lem.

“I ex­pect her to make these false claims be­cause af­ter all, it ex­posed her dan­ger­ous, di­a­bol­i­cal and wicked rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the peo­ple of that elec­toral dis­trict,” Gon­za­les said, adding the PNM had lib­er­at­ed Morne Di­a­blo res­i­dents af­ter the UNC ne­glect­ed them.

Gon­za­les called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar “to apol­o­gise to the Morne Di­a­blo res­i­dents” and de­sist from her false claims.

“I blew open the wa­ter truck­ing rack­et that oc­curred un­der the nose of the Op­po­si­tion Leader. Now she has the gall to talk about my in­ter­ven­tion to help her own con­stituents? Shame­less Kam­la! No won­der her lead­er­ship is un­der the test of her own par­ty. She is a dis­grace­ful fail­ure.”

Gon­za­les said he re­ceived nu­mer­ous calls from the res­i­dents who ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at the MP’s state­ments.

“The in­ter­ven­tion I made in Morne Di­a­blo is al­so like a punch to her guts be­cause whilst she lied and said un­der her tenure 69 per cent of the coun­try had 24/7 wa­ter, the peo­ple of Morne Di­a­blo ... in her own con­stituen­cy, were the vic­tims of a vi­cious wa­ter truck­ing rack­et. Is that the 24/7 she was re­fer­ring to? It was re­al­ly a 24/7 wa­ter truck­ing rack­et.”

On hear­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims, sev­er­al res­i­dents yes­ter­day pro­vid­ed ev­i­dence wa­ter was flow­ing through their taps.

Among them was pres­i­dent of the Morne Di­a­blo Vil­lage Coun­cil Court­ney Bethel. Bethel said since the com­ple­tion of the wa­ter project in April “we have been get­ting a reg­u­lar sup­ply for the past month and more”.

“The vil­lagers are very sat­is­fied with the sched­ul­ing and I hope it con­tin­ues,” Bethel said.

Quar­ry Road res­i­dent An­jit Bal­go­b­in said he now re­ceives good wa­ter pres­sure from WASA and had no prob­lems with their sup­ply.

“Who­ev­er send­ing false in­for­ma­tion and try­ing to make pro­pa­gan­da, stop it!” Bal­go­b­in said.