WASA condemns theft and vandalism at multiple south Trinidad sites

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has con­demned what it de­scribes as a “brazen” wave of crim­i­nal van­dal­ism and theft tar­get­ing its in­fra­struc­ture, fol­low­ing in­ci­dents at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions in south Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty, be­tween mid­night and 4 am to­day, un­known per­pe­tra­tors re­moved brass cou­plings from wa­ter ser­vice con­nec­tions at 13 lo­ca­tions along Mt Pleas­ant Road, Car­oli­na, Spring­vale and Car­oli­na Vil­lage.

The lat­est in­ci­dent fol­lows a sim­i­lar oc­cur­rence on March 26, when five ser­vice con­nec­tions were van­dalised and stolen along Tam­bu Road West in Spring­vale, Clax­ton Bay. WASA said those con­nec­tions have since been re­paired.

In a state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, the Au­thor­i­ty said it was “out­raged by these re­peat­ed, brazen at­tacks on pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture,” not­ing that such acts dis­rupt its abil­i­ty to de­liv­er a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply.

WASA said it has since in­creased se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence at key fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try and ac­ti­vat­ed a ded­i­cat­ed Van­dal­ism Hot­line at 465-2949 for mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty near its in­stal­la­tions.

It al­so con­firmed that re­pair works have be­gun at all af­fect­ed sites to re­store wa­ter ser­vice.

The Au­thor­i­ty re­mind­ed that van­dal­ism of pub­lic prop­er­ty is a crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act and the Ma­li­cious Dam­age Act, with of­fend­ers li­able to fines and im­pris­on­ment.

“These acts of van­dal­ism do not mere­ly dam­age prop­er­ty, they un­der­mine the Au­thor­i­ty’s abil­i­ty to pro­vide re­li­able wa­ter ser­vices and dis­rupt the dai­ly lives, health, and well-be­ing of hard­work­ing cit­i­zens,” WASA said.

It urged cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to the hot­line or the near­est po­lice sta­tion.

“We will not al­low crim­i­nal el­e­ments to hold our com­mu­ni­ties hostage. WASA stands ready to work with law en­force­ment to en­sure that per­pe­tra­tors are iden­ti­fied, ar­rest­ed, and pros­e­cut­ed to the fullest ex­tent of the law.”