Minister of Public Utilities, Barry Padarath, has criticised the Opposition for failing to adequately address the vulnerabilities in the Water and Sewerage Authority’s surface water treatment systems during their tenure.
Minister Padarath was responding to an urgent question from the Member of Parliament for Arouca/Lopinot, Marvin Gonzales, during Friday’s sitting of the House of Representatives.
He was asked what relief efforts were being put in place for citizens affected by water outages in north Trinidad. The Minister assured that WASA’s response efforts are ongoing and form part of long-term infrastructural improvements aimed at minimising future disruptions caused by weather-related events.
“Mr. Speaker, right now, attendants are on standby at each one of the plants. Some of the debris has been removed, and I can indicate to the national population that the following plants were restored over the last 12 hours. That is in Caura, Acono, La Pastora and Guanapo. Mr. Speaker, the WASA Evolution Team plans to install deflector plates and band screens to mitigate the problems and allow the plants to operate under adverse conditions. As I indicated, Mr. Speaker, before, this was not done in the last 10 years, and the reason the people of Trinidad and Tobago suffered in the past 48 hours was because of the inaction for 10 years of our friends opposite.”