Padarath defiant as security firms press WASA over $75M debt

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

While pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, owed an es­ti­mat­ed $75 mil­lion, say some Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) sites had no guards on Fri­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath claims no WASA fa­cil­i­ty was left un­manned.

Padarath al­so re­ject­ed the com­pa­nies’ 4 pm Fri­day dead­line for a re­sponse, call­ing it un­rea­son­able.

Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­SA) spokesper­son Raquel-Ann Uzoe­me­ka said most sites were manned on Fri­day, but not all. Some com­pa­nies told WASA se­cu­ri­ty that no of­fi­cer re­port­ed for du­ty at cer­tain lo­ca­tions, she said, adding that mem­ber com­pa­nies have not told work­ers to stand down. By her es­ti­mate, about 250 of­fi­cers spread across the 13 firms are af­fect­ed by WASA’s non-pay­ment of ar­rears.

The as­so­ci­a­tion gave WASA’s lead­er­ship un­til 4 pm last Fri­day to re­spond to cor­re­spon­dence aimed at set­tling a sub­stan­tial part of the ar­rears. If noth­ing came, its ex­ec­u­tive was to meet to de­cide its next step.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Padarath said he spoke to WASA’s CEO, who ad­vised him that none of the au­thor­i­ty’s fa­cil­i­ties was left un­manned and that con­tin­gency plans are in place in case of a no-show.

He said he asked WASA to look in­to how much is owed and how much has been paid. The bills built up over many years, some dat­ing back to 2016.

“We have no ob­jec­tion to per­sons wish­ing to be paid and so on, but the tim­ing of it is very pe­cu­liar,” Padarath said.

How­ev­er, he ques­tioned the mo­tive be­hind the dead­line and found it un­rea­son­able in the mid­dle of the bud­get cy­cle, say­ing there must be di­a­logue.

“I will not be black­mailed and held to ran­som by an as­so­ci­a­tion or by pri­vate com­pa­nies. We will work with them to get some mea­sure of re­lief, but there is no way in hell I am go­ing to al­low any pri­vate com­pa­ny to hold us to ran­som.”

Padarath said WASA has been go­ing through the bills and has made some pay­ments, but must fol­low the Fi­nance Min­istry process to iden­ti­fy fund­ing. He blamed for­mer min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les for run­ning up the bill over more than three years, and said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion should have paid as it went along and the as­so­ci­a­tion should have spo­ken up ear­li­er.

Oth­er cred­i­tors, in­clud­ing elec­tric­i­ty and tele­phone providers and con­trac­tors, are owed bil­lions, he said, and af­ter 18 months in of­fice, the Gov­ern­ment can­not clear bills go­ing back to 2016 in one fis­cal year. He said WASA will use Fi­nance Min­istry fund­ing to clear some of the back­log while keep­ing a work­ing re­la­tion­ship with the com­pa­nies.

How­ev­er, Uzoe­me­ka re­ject­ed any po­lit­i­cal mo­tive. She said the in­dus­try has tried to stay out of pol­i­tics and has dealt with the mat­ter through the as­so­ci­a­tion and WASA. Lit­i­ga­tion had been dis­cussed but not pur­sued. Late gov­ern­ment pay­ments are com­mon, she said, but this one is dif­fer­ent.

“What we are see­ing now is un­prece­dent­ed,” Uzoe­me­ka said.

She said five let­ters and fol­low-ups since May, plus a Sep­tem­ber 14 let­ter to Padarath and the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, brought no meet­ing date or ac­knowl­edge­ment. When firms call WASA’s ac­counts de­part­ment, she said, they are told no cheque is avail­able. Com­pa­nies run pay­roll in the hope of pay­ment, which leaves them be­hind on NIS and tax, and the $75 mil­lion in­cludes statu­to­ry de­faults.

Mean­while, Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son said un­paid of­fi­cers car­ry the cost. They have bad cred­it rat­ings, are tak­ing sec­ond jobs and have run up trans­port bills. One of­fi­cer was about to lose the bus that takes his chil­dren to school un­til Richard­son paid the fare him­self.

“Some have been evict­ed from their homes, and fam­i­lies are be­ing bro­ken up, and it’s a holy mess that is tak­ing place,” Richard­son said.

He said the prob­lem has ex­ist­ed since he took of­fice in 2018.

“There has to be a sit-down with the com­pa­nies and for­malise a pay­ment sched­ule in which the work­ers, first of all, could be able to get their salaries on time.”

He al­so said WASA’s own se­cu­ri­ty de­part­ment is un­der­staffed.

The dis­pute comes as WASA faces a $287 mil­lion cut in bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture for fis­cal 2027. Uzoe­me­ka said it is un­clear whether se­cu­ri­ty pay­ments were fac­tored in and de­ferred that ques­tion to the min­is­ter.