Ke­jan Haynes & Jesse Ramdeo

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has ex­pand­ed its lead­er­ship team yet again, with six more ap­point­ments.

The new ap­point­ments were con­firmed via an in­ter­nal email to staff yes­ter­day. Guardian Me­dia ob­tained the cor­re­spon­dence, which iden­ti­fied the lat­est ad­di­tions to what is now be­ing brand­ed as the “WASA Evo­lu­tion Team.”

Among the new ap­pointees are Bri­an Williams (Act­ing Head of the To­ba­go Re­gion); Richard Bul­lock (Act­ing Head of As­set Main­te­nance, Waste­water); An­dron­i­cus Williams (Act­ing Head of Net­work In­tel­li­gence); Ri­car­do Fred­er­ick (Act­ing Head of Project Im­ple­men­ta­tion for the North Re­gion); Glen Singh (Act­ing Head of In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­age­ment); and Ellen Lewis, who re­turns to the or­gan­i­sa­tion as Act­ing Di­rec­tor of Cus­tomer Care.

Back in May, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath de­scribed WASA’s for­mer ex­ec­u­tive struc­ture as “heavy,” point­ing out that 34 po­si­tions had cost the au­thor­i­ty over $70 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly. At the time, Gov­ern­ment promised a $30 mil­lion re­duc­tion in those costs.

Asked yes­ter­day whether that promise was on track, Padarath con­firmed the ex­ec­u­tive team had been sig­nif­i­cant­ly down­sized.

“We have re­duced the amount of per­sons in the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment team from 34 to about 10,” he said.

“That sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duces the top-heavy man­age­ment that ex­ist­ed be­fore re­scind­ing the man­age­ment plan. It will keep costs down and lead to sav­ings for the com­pa­ny.”

Padarath added that the re­struc­tur­ing will al­so sup­port the Evo­lu­tion 2025 plan for WASA, which is set to launch in Au­gust ahead of the util­i­ty’s 60th an­niver­sary in Sep­tem­ber.

He said, “The board is cur­rent­ly re­view­ing oth­er roles in the com­pa­ny to re­align em­ploy­ees’ tal­ents, KPIs, and com­pe­tence for greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. I be­lieve we are well on our way to sav­ing the com­pa­ny mon­ey and keep­ing peo­ple em­ployed at WASA.”

The man­age­r­i­al ad­di­tions are part of the re­struc­tur­ing trig­gered by the June 25 dis­missal of for­mer CEO Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day and his en­tire ex­ec­u­tive team. That day, WASA’s board ap­proved a new or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture, which took ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly.

Guardian Me­dia has count­ed 24 new mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive an­nounced by a se­ries of in­ter­nal emails since June 25.

In­ter­nal doc­u­ments seen by Guardian Me­dia out­line the pro­posed salary frame­work for the lead­er­ship team. Based on those fig­ures, com­pen­sa­tion ranges from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50,000 to $108,000 per month af­ter ben­e­fits, at a to­tal an­nu­al cost of $17,370,000.

Se­nior WASA ex­ec­u­tive team (13 po­si­tions)

Jee­van Joseph – Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer

Na­tal­ie Hug­gins – Gen­er­al Coun­sel / Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary (Ag.)

Mervyn Gib­son – Di­rec­tor, Hu­man Re­sources (Ag.)

Lancelot Leza­ma – Di­rec­tor, Fi­nance (Ag.)

Dain Ma­haraj – Di­rec­tor, Cor­po­rate Ser­vices (Ag.)

Kr­ish­na Per­sads­ingh – Di­rec­tor, Waste­water Ser­vices (Ag.)

Shawn Sa­landy – Di­rec­tor, Strate­gic Pro­gramme De­vel­op­ment & Im­ple­men­ta­tion (Ag.)

Man­noo Bridglal – Di­rec­tor, Op­er­a­tions (Con­sul­tant – 3-month con­tract)

Kendall Spencer – Head, Pro­cure­ment (Ag.)

Rachelle Wilkie – Head, Pay­ments, Trea­sury, Fi­nan­cial and Cap­i­tal Re­port­ing (Ag.)

Leah Gue­vara – Head, Au­dit and Com­pli­ance (Ag.)

Cheryl Heather Blan­chard – Head, Le­gal Ser­vices (Ag.)

Ellen Lewis – Di­rec­tor, Cus­tomer Care (Ag.)

Re­gion­al and Project Heads (11 po­si­tions)

Glason Gu­rusarans­ingh – Head, North East Re­gion

Fa­reed Ali – Head, North West Re­gion

Ryan Bachu – Head, Cen­tral Re­gion

Maria John – Head, South West Re­gion

Bri­an Williams – Head, To­ba­go Re­gion (Ag.)

Ren­ny Bharath – Head, Project Im­ple­men­ta­tion

Ronald Ramkalawan – Head, Waste­water Projects

Richard Bul­lock – Head, As­set Main­te­nance, Waste­water (Ag.)

An­dron­i­cus Williams – Head, Net­work In­tel­li­gence (Ag.)

Ri­car­do Fred­er­ick – Head, Project Im­ple­men­ta­tion, North Re­gion (Ag.)

Glen Singh – Head, In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­age­ment (Ag.)