By Sue-Ann Wayow
MINISTER of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales has requested the assistance of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for infrastructural issues faced by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).
Gonzales told AZPNews.com that should negotiations go according to plan, all areas would stand to benefit and there was no victimisation on any one particular area.
Gonzales was responding to Mayaro’s Member of Parliament Rushton Paray’s claims that Mayaro was being neglected in WASA’s water distribution.
“The sad reality is that the situation in Mayaro is not different from many other constituencies across Trinidad and Tobago. It is unfortunate that the MP is playing the victim game in this unfortunate situation and giving the impression that other areas of TT are being taken care of to the disadvantage of his constituency,” Gonzales said.
He added that he has always been open about WASA’s state of affairs and the impact it had on the water supply situation “across every spectrum of the society regardless of race, class or geographical location.”
The minister said he already laid in Parliament a report on WASA and a proposal was made for a Water Stabilisation Plan for the country that will include rectifying some of the problems that Paray identified in his constituency.
Gonzales said, “I am currently in negotiations with the IDB to access funding to commence the Government’s national Water Stabalisation and Improvement Programme to address the problems and the many problems affecting the water supply situation across the length and breadth of the country including the people of Mayaro.”
He added, “The Government of which I am a part, is not only committed to tackling the water supply issues in the country but is also about to undertake a major restructuring of the WASA so that as a country when the situation is improved, we will not get back to this unfortunate position.”
Gonzales has been recently touring United National Congress (UNC) constituencies in Central to do his own investigations. He added that Mayaro will also be visited soon.
And he advised Paray to take the heat down” as the UNC could have also remedied the problem when they were in government but failed to do so.
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