The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Anil Ram has ac­cused Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les of giv­ing “con­flict­ing re­ports” in­to the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee’s re­port on WASA.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day Ram said, “Why pro­ceed to re­struc­ture with­out know­ing what struc­tures are re­quired by the blue­print of the in­te­grat­ed wa­ter man­age­ment pro­gramme? Is it not a mat­ter of putting the cart be­fore the horse?”

He al­so asked why Gov­ern­ment send­ing the re­port to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment when it al­so out­lined the facts.

Ram said while there are some “lega­cy is­sues” which need­ed to be sort­ed out at WASA, the Op­po­si­tion must en­sure that de­ci­sions are made in the best in­ter­est of the pub­lic and that they are trans­par­ent. He al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hav­ing no clear plan for WASA, say­ing it was not the first time the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was at­tempt­ing to “pri­va­tise or to make changes to WASA’s struc­ture.”

But in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry said the coun­try ex­pects the Op­po­si­tion to work with the Gov­ern­ment on this na­tion­al cri­sis at WASA, not­ing it is plagu­ing every cit­i­zen, re­gard­less of race, ge­og­ra­phy or class.

It said the cit­i­zens had been wronged and vic­timised over the years by those who saw the wa­ter sec­tor “as their ve­hi­cle to pur­sue their own self-seek­ing agen­das for prof­i­teer­ing and self-en­rich­ment at the cit­i­zens’ ex­pense while we, the cit­i­zens, con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence a pre­cip­i­tous de­cline in the avail­abil­i­ty of wa­ter in our taps.”

The min­istry not­ed that the re­port dis­closed why, de­spite the ex­pense of over $28 bil­lion in 10 years, cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to suf­fer for a dai­ly sup­ply of wa­ter.

The min­istry added that the re­port had ex­posed the “scan­dalous state of af­fairs in the sole state agency charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing that we have a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply but it al­so high­light­ed our de­ter­mined re­solve to do right and hold true to our oath of of­fice in de­fence of all the cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”