WASA hires under scrutiny: Nine influencers among 416 employed since general election

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has hired nine out of a pro­posed batch of 12 so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers, with month­ly salaries to­talling $85,398.92.

The in­flu­encers are among 416 peo­ple hired by the Au­thor­i­ty right af­ter the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, be­tween April 29 and No­vem­ber 30, 2025.

In­formed sources told Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk that twelve in­flu­encers were iden­ti­fied, nine hired and placed un­der or­di­nary job ti­tles with salaries up to $12,500. They are now be­ing used around cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions to at­tack crit­ics and de­fend the Gov­ern­ment on­line.

The source al­so al­leged that none are qual­i­fied or use­ful to WASA’s core work.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk un­der­stands the en­gaged work­ers were placed on six-month con­tracts un­der or­di­nary WASA job ti­tles. (SEE TA­BLE)

When com­bined, the in­flu­encers have an on­line au­di­ence of over 181,000 fol­low­ers across In­sta­gram, Tik­Tok, Face­book and Threads.

Not all of the names were found in the in­ter­nal re­cruit­ment re­port cov­er­ing April 29 to No­vem­ber 30, 2025.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk re­viewed videos show­ing in­flu­encers linked to WASA wear­ing brand­ed shirts in of­fices and on project sites, de­fend­ing Gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions and spend­ing.

In some videos, the in­flu­encers ap­peared alone. In oth­ers, they joined to­geth­er.

In one video, they sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s $3.4 bil­lion Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion hous­ing con­tracts to 11 con­trac­tors. Those con­tracts are un­der re­view by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion, which di­rect­ed HDC to pause the awards pend­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the pro­cure­ment pro­ceed­ings.

In the videos, the in­flu­encers known as Twig­gy (for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment stal­wart), Matara French and Mr Miss ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion and oth­er crit­ics of rob­bing cit­i­zens of homes.

Stark, in a so­cial me­dia post, took his turn to de­fend the Gov­ern­ment on the mat­ter.

A WASA source said some of the in­flu­encers were placed around Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions to re­spond to on­line crit­i­cism.

The source said the arrange­ment was not list­ed as an in­flu­encer unit on pa­per.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk con­tact­ed sev­er­al of the in­flu­encers to get their com­ments.

Stark Grimes re­spond­ed, say­ing the is­sue was “a point­less con­ver­sa­tion” be­cause, in his view, many peo­ple al­ready work­ing at WASA were not qual­i­fied.

“I don’t want to say any­thing. Okay. But I mean, I could say some­thing, be­cause that is a point­less con­ver­sa­tion, be­cause there are thou­sands of peo­ple in WASA that are not qual­i­fied to work WASA to be­gin with,” Grimes said.

“What are they go­ing to do? Are they go­ing to fire all the WASA work­ers that are not qual­i­fied, which are thou­sands of peo­ple?” he asked.

Grimes al­so sug­gest­ed the is­sue was be­ing raised be­cause of pol­i­tics.

“Or maybe they just don’t want me in par­tic­u­lar, or the UNC peo­ple to get a job,” he said.

He said WASA had long had work­ers with­out the rel­e­vant pa­per­work.

“But there are thou­sands of WASA work­ers that are qual­i­fied that have no form of pa­per­work to work WASA. And that have been like that over the 10 years of the PNM, 20 years. And every­body knows that, so why should that even be a con­ver­sa­tion?” he asked.

Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk was sent a screen­shot of a Feb­ru­ary 1 What­sApp sta­tus by for­mer act­ing Di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­sources, Mervyn Gib­son.

The mat­ter was said to be at the heart of his ex­it from the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The mes­sages, be­lieved to be post­ed to his sta­tus in er­ror, not­ed two names sent by “the CEO” for im­me­di­ate hire.

It said the peo­ple were to be called on that Sun­day to re­port ear­ly Mon­day and start work.

Pub­lic records lat­er showed Gib­son’s res­ig­na­tion from the post of Di­rec­tor, Hu­man Re­sources (Ag) took im­me­di­ate ef­fect on Feb­ru­ary 2. TTSEC records al­so list WASA ma­te­r­i­al-change fil­ings in­volv­ing Gib­son and Bun­ny Ramb­ha­jan.

The WASA source said the screen­shot is the core of the con­cerns in­side the au­thor­i­ty about names be­ing sent to HR. At the time, line min­is­ter, Bar­ry Padarath, said Gib­son cit­ed per­son­al rea­sons for the res­ig­na­tion, the source con­firmed it was di­rect­ly linked to the hir­ing process and con­cerns over names be­ing sent in­to HR.

All at­tempts to con­tact Gib­son were un­suc­cess­ful. The min­is­ter could not be reached for com­ment.

Near­ly three months af­ter Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk asked for the pa­per trail be­hind its post-elec­tion hir­ing, WASA brought in an ex­ter­nal law firm.

The firm asked Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk to “hold your hands” for an­oth­er 42 days. A WASA source, with di­rect knowl­edge of the hir­ing process, said the records would ex­pose an in­flu­encer unit pay­roll in­side the au­thor­i­ty.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest seek­ing records on all peo­ple em­ployed or en­gaged by WASA af­ter the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The re­quest asked for names, job ti­tles, de­part­ments, em­ploy­ment sta­tus, start dates and con­tract du­ra­tion.

It al­so asked for re­cruit­ment poli­cies, va­can­cy no­tices, ap­point­ment let­ters, pay­roll costs, in­ter­nal mem­os, and any au­dits or re­views of re­cruit­ment prac­tices.

The email trail showed WASA re­ceived the re­quest on Feb­ru­ary 27.

On March 2, WASA’s FOIA of­fi­cer wrote to Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk about a date is­sue on the form and said the re­quest had been re­ceived on Feb­ru­ary 27.

On March 3, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk agreed that WASA could process the re­quest us­ing Feb­ru­ary 27 as the re­ceived date.

On April 2, WASA asked for more time.

On May 1, Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny’s lawyer An­dre Sinanan wrote say­ing it had been re­tained to act on WASA’s be­half.

The firm said it was as­sum­ing con­duct of the mat­ter and asked Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk to “hold your hands” for 42 days to al­low for a re­sponse.

On May 6, the firm was asked what sec­tion of the FOIA al­lowed that fur­ther pe­ri­od. There was no re­sponse.

Sec­tion 15 of the Act re­quires a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty to no­ti­fy an ap­pli­cant of ap­proval or re­fusal as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble, and no lat­er than 30 days af­ter the re­quest is du­ly made.

Up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion, WASA had not re­leased the re­quest­ed hir­ing records or told Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk whether it had ap­proved or de­nied ac­cess to the in­for­ma­tion.

When con­tact­ed for an up­date on Wednes­day, Har­rikissoon and Com­pa­ny said Sinanan was out of the coun­try at the mo­ment.

An in­ter­nal WASA memo dat­ed April 14, 2026, said the Au­thor­i­ty had changed the struc­ture of its Pro­cure­ment De­part­ment.

The memo said the posts of Mi­nor Pro­cure­ment Man­ag­er and Ma­jor Pro­cure­ment Man­ag­er were con­sol­i­dat­ed in­to one post called Man­ag­er of Pro­cure­ment.

It said San­gi­ta Thack­oor was ap­point­ed Man­ag­er of Pro­cure­ment, while Neasha Khan-Bar­ran would serve as Strate­gic Change Leader and Kendall Spencer would con­tin­ue as Head of Pro­cure­ment.

Un­der the memo, the Man­ag­er of Pro­cure­ment re­port­ed to the Strate­gic Change Leader, who re­port­ed to the Head of Pro­cure­ment.

WASA’s re­cruit­ment re­port list­ed Khan-Bar­ran as Se­nior Pro­cure­ment Spe­cial­ist, with a Ju­ly 2025 start date and a salary of $22,848 a month.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk sent ques­tions to WASA’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment and Head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Kristy Ram­nar­ine, on whether the pro­cure­ment changes were ap­proved by the board.

It was al­so asked whether the posts were ad­ver­tised, whether salaries or au­thor­i­ty changed, and whether the new struc­ture had any role in the law firm re­tained on the FOIA mat­ter, as well as de­tails on WASA’s hir­ing process.

It was al­so asked why an out­side law firm was re­tained to re­spond to a FOIA re­quest.

WASA, in re­sponse, said it ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed Thurs­day, May 21.

It said, please be ad­vised that your queries touch on op­er­a­tional, le­gal and per­son­nel is­sues that re­quire de­tailed re­view and con­sid­er­a­tion.

With re­spect to your Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest, WASA con­firmed that the re­quest is be­ing processed in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act and es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.

It added in this re­gard, we ap­pre­ci­ate your pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing as we work to ad­dress your re­quest.

An in­ter­nal WASA re­cruit­ment re­port ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk showed the Au­thor­i­ty hired 416 peo­ple be­tween April 29 and No­vem­ber 30, 2025.

Of those, 336 were month­ly paid em­ploy­ees, and 80 were dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers.

The re­port said the work­ers were hired for six-months in the first in­stance.

The re­port said Hu­man Re­sources act­ed af­ter “over­whelm­ing re­quests” from di­vi­sions to ad­dress crit­i­cal man­pow­er short­ages.

It said di­vi­sion and de­part­ment heads were re­quired to iden­ti­fy va­can­cies and short-term man­pow­er gaps.

Where pos­si­ble, the re­port said, in­ter­nal place­ments were used.

Where no suit­able in­ter­nal can­di­dates were avail­able, ex­ter­nal re­cruit­ment was done.

The re­port said HR used a cen­tralised job ap­pli­ca­tions data­base with more than 5,000 ac­tive ap­pli­ca­tions. The source said the goal was to fill more than 800 po­si­tions.

The re­port said the data­base was sort­ed by job func­tion, in­clud­ing en­gi­neer­ing, le­gal, man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tive roles.

But the re­port did not show who searched the data­base, who rec­om­mend­ed each name and who ap­proved each hire.

It al­so did not show whether every per­son was in­ter­viewed or whether every job was ad­ver­tised. A thor­ough search for WASA va­can­cies is­sued af­ter April 28, 2025 on­ly re­vealed three trace­able ads for Civ­il En­gi­neer, Ju­nior Quan­ti­ty Sur­vey­or and Process Plant Op­er­a­tor I.

The source al­so claimed many of the work­ers brought in ear­li­er would not have their con­tracts re­newed and would be sent home in batch­es as ear­ly as next week, while oth­er peo­ple con­tin­ued to be brought in­to the Au­thor­i­ty.

WASA’s re­port said the re­cent hires were need­ed be­cause of man­pow­er short­ages. It said those short­ages had caused high­er over­time costs and poor ser­vice de­liv­ery.

It said the hires were meant to sup­port pro­cure­ment, HR, record-keep­ing, cus­tomer sup­port, statu­to­ry com­pli­ance, plant op­er­a­tions, cap­i­tal projects, main­te­nance, fi­nance, health and safe­ty.

The largest cat­e­go­ry was Ad­min­is­tra­tive/Cler­i­cal, with 177 hires.

Plant Op­er­a­tions had 69.

Non-skilled dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers had 68.

En­gi­neer­ing/Tech­ni­cal had 45.

Project/Pro­gramme Man­age­ment had 22.

Fi­nance/Ac­count­ing had 10.

Health, Safe­ty and En­vi­ron­ment had five.

A WASA source said the Au­thor­i­ty still had short­ages in treat­ment plant op­er­a­tions. The source not­ed that WASA re­mained short of more than 80 treat­ment plant op­er­a­tors, while peo­ple who could not per­form that work were be­ing placed in oth­er jobs.

The in­ter­nal re­port con­firmed the broad­er hir­ing cost was not lim­it­ed to low­er-lev­el posts.

It list­ed se­nior ex­ter­nal re­cruits sep­a­rate­ly.

Those posts in­clud­ed Di­rec­tor of Cus­tomer Care, Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions, Di­rec­tor of Hu­man Re­sources, Head of Pro­cure­ment and sev­er­al se­nior pro­gramme lead­ers.

Those salaries ranged from $45,000 to $60,000 a month.

The hir­ing is­sue was first raised pub­licly by for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les months ago.

Gon­za­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hir­ing 426 peo­ple at WASA in sev­en months.

He claimed the hir­ing could add $60 mil­lion to $70 mil­lion to WASA’s an­nu­al wage bill. For his part, Padarath has re­ject­ed the crit­i­cism.

He said the work­ers were hired on short-term con­tracts to deal with man­pow­er gaps.

The hir­ings al­so oc­curred while WASA’s fi­nances re­mained un­der pres­sure. The Au­thor­i­ty’s lat­est pub­licly lo­cat­ed au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments are for 2023. Of­fi­cials told a 2021 JSC WASA had a $10 bil­lion debt hole and the 2024 bud­get state­ment said gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tions to­talled $8.118 bil­lion be­tween 2019 and 2023.

Soon af­ter the UNC Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice, WASA’s then CEO, Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, and nine se­nior ex­ec­u­tives were dis­missed in June 2025. The dis­missals were said to be part of a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion to re­scind the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s “trans­for­ma­tion plan”.