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Monday, June 23, 2025

WASA suspends 3 workers

Accused of neglect over supply disruption in Cunupia

by

Shaliza Hassanali
469 days ago
20240311
Residents of Kernahan Trace, Cunupia, protest over the lack of water in their community last week.

Residents of Kernahan Trace, Cunupia, protest over the lack of water in their community last week.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

One week af­ter Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to what caused a dis­rup­tion in a reg­u­lar sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter to Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) cus­tomers at Ker­nan­han Trace, Chin Chin Road, Cunu­pia, one man­ag­er and two se­nior staff mem­bers at the util­i­ty have been sus­pend­ed with full pay on al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct.

The sus­pen­sion let­ters, dat­ed March 7, 2024, were signed by Trin­nelle Thomas, act­ing as­sis­tant man­ag­er, em­ploy­ee re­la­tions, and copied to Ali­cia Brath­waite-Sam­my, act­ing di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­sources.

The let­ters came mere days af­ter Gon­za­les stat­ed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­way by WASA to de­ter­mine if an al­leged wa­ter truck­ing rack­et was be­hind the wa­ter woes which led Ker­na­han Trace res­i­dents to stage a fiery protest in their com­mu­ni­ty last Fri­day.

Gon­za­les al­so promised that “heads will roll” aris­ing out of the res­i­dents not be­ing pro­vid­ed a re­li­able sup­ply.

Dur­ing the an­gry protest, one man was ar­rest­ed and po­lice used pep­per spray on some res­i­dents when the sit­u­a­tion be­came out of con­trol.

The res­i­dents bit­ter­ly com­plained that their taps had been dry for months while neigh­bour­ing streets had a steady sup­ply.

WASA sub­se­quent­ly pro­vid­ed a truck-borne sup­ply to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents and launched a probe in­to the mat­ter, trig­ger­ing the fast sus­pen­sions.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an al­leged wa­ter truck­ing rack­et is still un­der­way.

The sus­pen­sion let­ters, which have been ob­tained Guardian Me­dia, showed that the fe­male man­ag­er was re­spon­si­ble for car­ry­ing out du­ties in the North Cen­tral re­gion, while the two se­nior male em­ploy­ees were as­signed to the South Cen­tral dis­trict.

In the let­ter ad­dressed to the fe­male man­ag­er, it stat­ed that the Em­ploy­ee and Labour Re­la­tions De­part­ment had re­ceived “a re­port dat­ed March 5, 2024, from Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions Shaira Ali, in which al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct were made against you”.

The al­le­ga­tions raised in the man­ag­er’s let­ter were that “dur­ing the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2024 to March 2024, you failed to ex­er­cise due care in the per­for­mance of your du­ties by en­sur­ing that the res­i­dents of Ker­na­ham Trace, Cunu­pia, were in re­ceipt of a reg­u­lar sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter”.

The let­ter al­so stat­ed that dur­ing the same pe­ri­od, the man­ag­er “failed to ex­er­cise due care in the per­for­mance of your du­ties by not re­port­ing to your im­me­di­ate su­per­vi­sor the chal­lenges faced in pro­vid­ing a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply to the res­i­dents of Ker­na­ham Trace, which re­sult­ed in protest ac­tion by the res­i­dents, bring­ing the au­thor­i­ty in­to dis­re­pute”.

It fur­ther in­formed the man­ag­er that the au­thor­i­ty viewed these al­le­ga­tions “se­ri­ous­ly and as such, you are here­by sus­pend­ed from du­ty with im­me­di­ate ef­fect with full pay pend­ing the out­come of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the above al­le­ga­tions”.

In the let­ters to the two se­nior work­ers, WASA stat­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 Ker­na­ham res­i­dents were with­out wa­ter for two months, which re­sult­ed in the protest ac­tion against the au­thor­i­ty.

The Ca­roni Are­na Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant sup­plies the res­i­dents with wa­ter.

One of the se­nior em­ploy­ees was told in the let­ter that he failed to en­sure that the chal­lenges af­fect­ing the res­i­dents were es­ca­lat­ed to the dis­trict man­ag­er.

Copies of the three let­ters stat­ed that se­nior man­ag­er, reg­u­la­to­ry and emer­gency man­age­ment, Roger Karim, was ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate al­le­ga­tions brought against the trio. They were all ad­vised to co­op­er­ate with Karim through­out the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

An in­side source at WASA could not say how long the man­ag­er and se­nior work­ers would be on sus­pen­sion.

“We are ex­pect­ing a swift in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” he said.

The source said dur­ing this harsh dry sea­son, WASA will pay close at­ten­tion to its area man­agers “to en­sure that com­mu­ni­ties do not go for an un­due length of time with­out a wa­ter sup­ply and things are es­ca­lat­ed to se­nior ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship and the board”.

These man­agers, he said, will be held to ac­count.

“You are paid to man­age your dis­trict. No com­mu­ni­ty should go with­out wa­ter for two or three weeks. This is un­ac­cept­able. If there is an is­sue and you see a few days pass and the com­mu­ni­ty don’t have wa­ter and you can’t do any­thing, you ei­ther put con­tin­gen­cies in place to deal with it. Or if con­tin­gen­cies can­not be put in place, then you es­ca­late it to the high­est lev­el so re­sources can be re­de­ployed to as­sist those com­mu­ni­ties.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, min­is­ter Gon­za­les said he had no com­ment to make re­gard­ing the sus­pen­sions.


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