Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Ten­sions flared at the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) Golds­bor­ough Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, when To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor (pre­vi­ous­ly B.Yis­rael) crit­i­cised the state en­ti­ty and Gov­ern­ment over the is­land’s wa­ter is­sues. She al­so raised con­cerns over the THA’s ex­clu­sion from key min­istry events on the is­land.

Cab­i­net mem­bers present—Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Mar­vin Gon­za­les—quick­ly shot back dur­ing their re­marks, dis­miss­ing the fo­cus on in­vi­ta­tions and ac­cus­ing Breb­nor of over­look­ing the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to im­prove To­ba­go’s wa­ter sup­ply. What was sup­posed to be a rou­tine sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny thus quick­ly be­came a fiery po­lit­i­cal show­down in front of in­vit­ed guests and res­i­dents, with no one hold­ing back on their crit­i­cisms.

Breb­nor first called out the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing, “I sin­cere­ly hope that this kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion—one where I am in­vit­ed to be a part of the cel­e­bra­tion—is not just hap­pen­ing be­cause we were forced to do it.”

Shift­ing her at­ten­tion to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, she added, “In oth­er words, Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, I’m look­ing for the oth­er in­vi­ta­tions.”

She then raised is­sues about wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty across the is­land, even in ar­eas with mod­ern in­fra­struc­ture.

“I get the calls all the time from peo­ple who are say­ing to me, ‘Call WASA, it’s three days now, we haven’t got­ten wa­ter.’ The chal­lenge is not just for res­i­dents; it ex­tends to farm­ers who are in the area, since Golds­bor­ough is the food bas­ket of To­ba­go.”

Her re­marks, how­ev­er, trig­gered a force­ful re­sponse from the Cab­i­net mem­bers present.

To­ba­go East MP Web­ster-Roy aban­doned her pre­pared speech to fire back.

“My very ho­n­ourable col­league from the THA al­so men­tioned parts of the THA Act of 1996, but I wish that same pas­sion would have been shared when we were de­bat­ing the two au­ton­o­my bills,” Web­ster-Roy said in ref­er­ence to the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) Bill, 2020 that was de­feat­ed in Par­lia­ment in De­cem­ber. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Beck­les-Robin­son al­so de­fend­ed Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to fix the wa­ter cri­sis in To­ba­go.

“Things will nev­er be per­fect be­cause very of­ten the im­pres­sion is giv­en that all the mon­ey is spent in Trinidad. Come to Ari­ma, and they will not say so. Go to Lopinot, and they will not say so,” Beck­les-Robin­son said.

“The col­lab­o­ra­tion al­ways ex­ist­ed. I was a for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter, and in 2002, there was a short­age of wa­ter in To­ba­go, and we had to im­port wa­ter from Trinidad. Dur­ing 2002-2004, for­mer chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don made the re­quest, and $30 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed from the min­istry to drill wells in To­ba­go, and that is why there isn’t the short­age of wa­ter now as com­pared to then.”

But it was Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gon­za­les who made it clear he has nev­er been in­vit­ed to any THA events by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He charged, “I’m not about that. I’m a big man, I have work to do. I’m not about mak­ing an is­sue over who gets an in­vi­ta­tion, who doesn’t. I’m about serv­ing the peo­ple who put me in of­fice, and when elec­tion comes, they’re not go­ing to de­ter­mine my po­lit­i­cal fu­ture by who I in­vite or who I didn’t in­vite.”

He called on To­bag­o­ni­ans not to tol­er­ate politi­cians who try to score points off the is­sue.

“Watch them care­ful­ly, how they con­duct them­selves when you put your trust in them, ask them to ac­count for what they have done, es­pe­cial­ly those who promised to fix things and are on­ly fix­ing them­selves.”

He con­demned Breb­nor’s com­ments, say­ing his min­istry has sent in­vi­ta­tions to events that were nev­er ac­knowl­edged or at­tend­ed by THA ex­ec­u­tives.

“I will for­give her (Breb­nor) be­cause, per­haps, she wasn’t aware that on many oc­ca­sions when we com­mis­sioned boost­er sta­tions and in­fra­struc­ture, the sec­re­tary re­spon­si­ble for util­i­ties (Sec­re­tary Ian Pol­lard) re­fused to at­tend.”

He al­so said the de­liv­ery of wa­ter to cit­i­zens should not be politi­cised, telling the au­di­ence, “Any min­is­ter or politi­cian that gets in­volved in the politi­ci­sa­tion of wa­ter is one that is un­de­serv­ing of your trust and rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

Gon­za­les, like Beck­les, said To­ba­go’s wa­ter sit­u­a­tion is bet­ter to­day than it was years ago. He de­nied ex­clud­ing the THA from ac­tiv­i­ties, say­ing re­cent­ly the Chief Sec­re­tary was a guest speak­er at a re­cent event in Char­lot­teville.

He said his min­istry had al­ready poured $77 mil­lion in­to im­prov­ing To­ba­go’s wa­ter sup­ply and plans to take that in­vest­ment up to $181 mil­lion with up­com­ing projects. The wa­ter treat­ment plant is ex­pect­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50 mil­lion.