SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is at­tempt­ing to ob­tain two loans from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) to­talling US$180 mil­lion (TT $1.2 bil­lion), in or­der to im­prove the coun­try’s nag­ging wa­ter prob­lems, car­ry out its trans­for­ma­tion plan and im­ple­ment crit­i­cal projects.

WASA is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive its first IDB loan of US$80 mil­lion as ear­ly as next month, and will soon go to the Amer­i­can-based bank for an ad­di­tion­al US$100 mil­lion.

The US$80 mil­lion loan is con­tin­gent on a na­tion­al wa­ter sec­tor trans­for­ma­tion pro­gramme that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove WASA’s op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of wa­ter ser­vices in T&T, while the US$100 mil­lion loan will pro­vide the cash-strapped State com­pa­ny with tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment to ad­dress cli­mate change.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment 50th con­ven­tion at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah last Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley spoke about the US$80m loan the Gov­ern­ment has “sourced and is close to re­ceiv­ing” to pro­vide WASA with sys­tems up­grades and in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing fur­ther on the plan at his St Clair of­fice on Mon­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said while the first loan will help im­prove WASA’s pro­duc­tion, trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of wa­ter, the Gov­ern­ment will ap­proach the IDB for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.

“This sit­u­a­tion with cli­mate change has be­come so ur­gent that while we (Gov­ern­ment) are about to sign this loan agree­ment for US$80 mil­lion, we are about to com­mence dis­cus­sions with re­spect to the next loan op­er­a­tion,” Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les said WASA had been se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by cli­mate change in the last three months. He said last month’s heavy rains, which led to wide­spread flood­ing, land­slides and un­der­ground soil move­ment in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, caused scores of WASA’s 16, 18, 24, 36, and 42-inch age­ing pipelines to crack and shift out of align­ment.

“Those old pipelines can no longer with­stand the ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions. I can tell you it would be mil­lions of dol­lars in dis­rup­tions WASA would have ex­pe­ri­enced over the two to three months with re­spect to mov­ing earth.”

He said with the World Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Or­gan­i­sa­tion fore­cast­ing the rainy sea­son to per­sist up to Feb­ru­ary next year, this has raised fur­ther con­cerns for WASA.

He said the util­i­ty needs to un­der­take crit­i­cal projects and fo­cus on build­ing re­silien­cy to com­bat cli­mate change.

“When­ev­er there is heavy and pro­longed rain­fall, all of WASA’s sur­face wa­ter plants have to be shut down be­cause of silt, dirt and mud flow­ing in­to their in­takes.”

He cit­ed last month’s flood­ing in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, say­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200,000 peo­ple could not re­ceive a pipe-borne sup­ply while scores of flood vic­tims were de­prived of wa­ter to clean their homes as a re­sult of this is­sue.

“We can­not be re­spond­ing to these emer­gency re­pairs every Mon­day morn­ing and peo­ple don’t have wa­ter.”

Gon­za­les said WASA wants to in­stall silt traps at plants in Aripo, To­co, Gua­napo, St Joseph, Mathu­ra, Blan­chisseuse and La Fil­lette so they can re­main op­er­a­ble when­ev­er there is ex­ces­sive rain­fall.

“We are al­so look­ing at in­vest­ing in high-den­si­ty poly­eth­yl­ene pipelines (HDPE) which are flex­i­ble and would not rup­ture dur­ing land shift­ing. This US$100 mil­lion will be used for in­vest­ing in tools and tech­nol­o­gy and be­ing able to treat with high­ly tur­bid wa­ter and con­tin­ued op­er­a­tion of WASA’s plants,” he said.

Pro­vid­ing a progress re­port on the US$80 mil­lion loan, Gon­za­les said WASA and his min­istry have been in ac­tive dis­cus­sions with the IDB.

He an­tic­i­pates that the loan will be ap­proved and signed off on by the end of next month. Asked what the in­ter­est rate for the loans would be, Gon­za­les said he was not sure. How­ev­er, he said the re­pay­ment pe­ri­od would be be­tween 15 and 20 years.

Gon­za­les ad­mit­ted the Gov­ern­ment will face fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties as a re­sult of the loans.

“It will bur­den the Gov­ern­ment be­cause they have to pay it back. The Gov­ern­ment is stand­ing se­cu­ri­ty for these loans.”

How­ev­er, he said, once WASA trims its fat, it will help re­pay the loans.

The Gov­ern­ment has ap­proved a US$315 mil­lion con­di­tion­al cred­it line for in­vest­ment projects in the wa­ter and waste­water sec­tors.

Giv­ing a break­down of how the US$80 mil­lion loan will be spent, Gon­za­les said US$44 mil­lion will be in­ject­ed in­to wa­ter sta­bil­i­sa­tion and im­prove­ments, US$31 mil­lion on net­work per­for­mance and to re­duce non-rev­enue wa­ter, US$2.74 mil­lion for wa­ter sec­tor trans­for­ma­tion and US$2.26 mil­lion will go to­wards project man­age­ment and oth­er costs.

The bank has al­ready told WASA and Gon­za­les’ min­istry that they must es­tab­lish a ded­i­cat­ed project ex­e­cu­tion unit to pro­vide the high­est lev­el of over­sight, strate­gic man­age­ment and de­liv­ery tar­gets for the con­struc­tion of six mod­u­lar wa­ter plants in the com­ing months in Ravine Sable, San­gre Grande, San­ta Cruz, Golds­bor­ough Riv­er, Blue Basin and Ma­yaro.

A WASA crew repairs a ruptured 4” diameter pipeline at Mon Repos roundabout in October.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Wa­ter treat­ment plant up­grades

The IDB will al­so close­ly mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate the re­fur­bish­ment and up­grade of nine of its wa­ter treat­ment plants at Freeport, Ca­roni, North Oropouche, Gua­napo, Mar­aval, Navet, Hill­bor­ough, Chatham and Cour­land.

At­ten­tion will al­so be paid to drilling sev­er­al new wells across the coun­try.

These projects will be ex­e­cut­ed through a co-man­age­ment per­for­mance-based con­tract with a spe­cialised con­sult­ing firm to be con­tract­ed by WASA.

The con­sult­ing firm will al­so pro­vide strate­gic ad­vice and tech­ni­cal sup­port to the au­thor­i­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive team dur­ing WASA’s trans­for­ma­tion.

“The ob­jec­tive of these projects is to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy, qual­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of T&T’s wa­ter sup­ply ser­vices. Achiev­ing these ob­jec­tives will con­tribute to elim­i­nat­ing the need for gov­ern­ment sup­port to meet op­er­a­tional ex­pen­di­ture and re­duce the re­liance on de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter,” Gon­za­les said.

The De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of T&T (De­sal­cott) cur­rent­ly pro­duces 40 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly. Half of the wa­ter it pro­duces en­ters the do­mes­tic grid, with the re­main­ing 20 mil­lion gal­lons serv­ing in­dus­tri­al plants.

The Gov­ern­ment pays De­sal­cott US$7 mil­lion month­ly for its wa­ter sup­ply.

Gon­za­les: mod­u­lar
wa­ter plants com­ing

Once the IDB loan has been grant­ed, Gon­za­les said WASA will go out for in­ter­na­tion­al ten­der for its mod­u­lar wa­ter plants to be built.

“Part of the IDB loan con­di­tion­al­i­ty is that these projects should be open­ly ad­ver­tised lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. In that re­gard, I can see some lo­cal con­trac­tors be­ing dis­ad­van­taged, be­cause they will have to seek in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to be able to par­tic­i­pate in this ten­der. Lo­cal con­trac­tors do not man­u­fac­ture mod­u­lar plants in T&T. Those plants are built by in­ter­na­tion­al sup­pli­ers in Eng­land and North Amer­i­ca.”

Con­struc­tion of the mod­u­lar plants is ex­pect­ed to be­gin in ear­ly 2023, with com­ple­tion in a year. Each plant will pro­duce five mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly.

Gon­za­les said one dis­trict that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly ben­e­fit from the plants and the drilling of a new well will be San­gre Grande.

“So, San­gre Grande will re­ceive ten mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly,” he said.

The North Oropouche wa­ter treat­ment plant cur­rent­ly sup­plies wa­ter to com­mu­ni­ties in the north­east­ern dis­trict. How­ev­er, Gon­za­les said due to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in many dis­tricts in that re­gion, mud, silt and rocks are reg­u­lar­ly sucked in­to the plant’s pumps.

“As a re­sult, the plant is shut down for clean­ing, which dis­rupts the sup­ply of wa­ter to com­mu­ni­ties. San­gre Grande has been af­fect­ed tremen­dous­ly over the last five years or so.”

Gon­za­les said WASA has its tasks ahead of them.

“WASA has to push its work and projects and make sure that we have no de­lays, cor­rup­tion, cost over­runs and hold the con­trac­tors’ to the fire and make sure they de­liv­er.”

More on WASA’s fu­ture

De­spite the au­thor­i­ty spend­ing $2 bil­lion from 2010 to 2015 to im­prove its age­ing in­fra­struc­ture and pipeline net­work, scores of cit­i­zens and com­mu­ni­ties have seen no tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits in their pipe-borne sup­ply over the years.

A 2020 fi­nan­cial re­port on WASA’s cash po­si­tion and fi­nan­cial sta­tus re­vealed the au­thor­i­ty’s out­stand­ing bal­ance on its loan oblig­a­tion stood at al­most $4 bil­lion. WASA bor­rowed sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey from lo­cal banks to un­der­take sub­stan­tial cap­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture projects. Un­der the loan oblig­a­tion, the re­port stat­ed that for 2019-2020, WASA was ex­pect­ed to pay $695.6 mil­lion for loan re­pay­ments. Of this fig­ure, $268.4 mil­lion was said to be in in­ter­est fees.

Among the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions WASA owed, the re­ports stat­ed, were Fin­co, Re­pub­lic Bank, Citibank, Re­pub­lic Fi­nance and Mer­chant Bank, Cen­tral Bank, RBL and RBC Trust.