Govt promises to fix WASA

GOVERNMENT says it will appoint a ministerial team to oversee the transformation of the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) into a efficient organisation and right the wrongs inflicted on it by the former UNC regime. On Wednesday, a parliamentary Joint Select Committee learnt that WASA may be financially bankrupt and the UNC’s “Water for All” campaign and the Point Lisas Desalination Plant had contributed to WASA’s “very sorry financial state.”

Addressing yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Works and Transport Minister Franklin Khan said he chaired a committee which looked into WASA’s operations and when he examined the data, he “did not know whether to laugh or to cry.” He said that committee reported to the Standing Committee on Energy. A report about the way forward for WASA has been sent to Cabinet. “It is a very involved process, but we think we have a way forward in a positive sense,” Khan stated. The minister said the root of WASA’s current problems lay in the pre-2000 period with “Water for All, the North Water Project, and South Water Project which together cost $1.2 billion plus Desalcott. That is significant debt that WASA incurred. Today as an administration, it baffles me to know where that money went and what type of improved deliverability of a quality water supply that the nation has received for that money,” Khan declared.

The minister said while Government would subsidise water “WASA has to become an efficient organisation that delivers a quality service to the people” and he was optimistic that this kind of turnaround would be seen next year. “Everything that we are in charge of, we take responsibility for,” Khan added. Junior Finance Minister Conrad Enill said, “We have decided that in order to ensure that they (WASA) stay true to their mandate, there is going to be a ministerial team made up of the skill sets that you require to basically oversee the implementation of the recovery for WASA. That is not finalised as yet. That will be funded in the next Budget.” Enill said one of WASA’s problems involved putting down more infrastructure “without fundamentally changing the way in which the system works.” He disclosed that one of the recommendations of Khan’s committee was “a short-term funding programme to achieve a level of additional water for individuals in this country by a predictable amount. We are going to fund that within the next 12 months,” Enill added.