The Minister of Public Utilities, Barry Padarath, is defending the Water and Sewerage Authority’s (WASA) handling of reports of discoloured water in parts of Trinidad, while pushing back against criticism from the former minister responsible for the authority.
In a video posted to his social media accounts on Thursday, Minister Padarath said similar incidents had occurred under previous administrations.
“While we continue to work with WASA assiduously to mitigate against the impact of discoloured water affecting some parts of Trinidad, this is not an unusual occurrence. It has happened before, especially under a PNM administration. In 2009, WASA, in an advisory, said ‘brown water is good to drink’, carried into Trinidad Guardian. In 2022-2023,’ WASA discoloured water supply to parts of Trinidad again’, carried in Trinidad The former Minister never disputed it. He stood by the data and the information placed in the public domain as the Line Minister with responsibility for WASA. Now he has thrown out a challenge to me. I want to say to him: name the date, name the time, name the place, and we will be able to knock glass for a glass of pipe-borne water coming from WASA.”