Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) says a whistle­blow­er com­plaint with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion trig­gered the foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to wa­ter truck­ing con­trac­tor Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (FEL), and not any oth­er in­ter­ven­tion.

How­ev­er, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is chal­leng­ing WASA's ac­count, in­sist­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to ques­tion­able wa­ter truck­ing trans­ac­tions were ini­ti­at­ed un­der his di­rec­tion fol­low­ing find­ings by a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee in 2021.

In a me­dia re­lease on Tues­day, WASA said the whistle­blow­er lodged a for­mal com­plaint con­cern­ing wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices pro­vid­ed by FEL be­tween 2019 and 2024.

"As a re­sult of the whistle­blow­er's com­plaint an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was trig­gered. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was not com­mis­sioned by any oth­er means," the au­thor­i­ty stat­ed.

WASA al­so con­firmed that it re­ceived the fi­nal re­port on Jan­u­ary 30, 2026, adding that state­ments made by Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath dur­ing Mon­day's Bud­get de­bate con­cern­ing the re­port's con­tents were fac­tu­al.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les, in a sub­se­quent state­ment, ac­cused WASA of at­tempt­ing to sani­tise the po­si­tion of its line min­is­ter.

He ques­tioned why the au­thor­i­ty had not dis­closed when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion ac­tu­al­ly com­menced, ar­gu­ing that con­cerns about cor­rup­tion in wa­ter truck­ing pre­dat­ed the whistle­blow­er com­plaint cit­ed by WASA.

"It is note­wor­thy that the Me­dia Re­lease does not iden­ti­fy when the in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­menced," Gon­za­les said.

He main­tained that the is­sue of cor­rup­tion in wa­ter truck­ing was raised in the Cab­i­net Sub-Com­mit­tee Re­port in­to WASA, which he laid in Par­lia­ment in March 2021.

He al­so point­ed to a sep­a­rate Ernst & Young re­port in­to wa­ter truck­ing com­mis­sioned by WASA in 2009.

Gon­za­les said he had pub­licly con­demned cor­rup­tion in wa­ter truck­ing since 2021 and sub­se­quent­ly di­rect­ed WASA's board to au­dit truck­ing op­er­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer min­is­ter, the au­dit in­clud­ed ver­i­fy­ing out­stand­ing in­voic­es be­fore pay­ments were made to con­trac­tors.

He said a sep­a­rate au­dit was un­der­tak­en specif­i­cal­ly in­to FEL's ac­count be­cause of the sub­stan­tial val­ue of its out­stand­ing in­voic­es.

"With re­spect to Flex­i­ble En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed, based on the quan­tum of out­stand­ing in­voic­es, an au­dit was al­so com­menced in­to that ac­count specif­i­cal­ly be­fore pay­ments were made to this con­trac­tor," Gon­za­les stat­ed.

He fur­ther point­ed to the com­mis­sion­ing of WASA's Op­er­a­tions Con­trol Cen­tre in 2024, say­ing it was in­tend­ed to im­prove the mon­i­tor­ing of wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices and ad­dress on­go­ing cor­rup­tion.

Gon­za­les main­tained that he was un­aware of any whistle­blow­er com­plaint cov­er­ing 2019 to 2024, in­sist­ing that the au­dits he di­rect­ed were based on the Cab­i­net Sub-Com­mit­tee's find­ings.

The con­flict­ing ac­counts fol­low Padarath's dis­clo­sure in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day that an Ernst & Young foren­sic re­view iden­ti­fied ap­prox­i­mate­ly $11.4 mil­lion in ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and 450 un­sup­port­ed in­voic­es val­ued at $30.1 mil­lion in­volv­ing FEL.

Padarath al­so raised ques­tions about gov­er­nance weak­ness­es, miss­ing doc­u­ments and de­fi­cien­cies in WASA's pro­cure­ment con­trols.

He con­firmed that the mat­ter had been re­ferred to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for fur­ther ex­am­i­na­tion.

At an Op­po­si­tion press con­fer­ence on Mon­day, Gon­za­les had sim­i­lar­ly ar­gued that the foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion cit­ed by Padarath orig­i­nat­ed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.