SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

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.