Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment has launched a spe­cial au­dit in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to wa­ter-truck­ing ser­vices at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion fol­low­ing nu­mer­ous ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and con­cerns raised dur­ing an en­quiry in­to com­plaints about an al­leged il­le­gal wa­ter-truck­ing scheme by cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ees.

The Gov­ern­ment’s Sen­ate leader, Amery Browne, an­nounced this in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day while re­ply­ing to a query from UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

Mark asked whether an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched in­to the com­plaints made by res­i­dents with­in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) re­gard­ing an al­leged il­le­gal wa­ter truck­ing scheme in­volv­ing cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ees.

In June 2024, SGRC chair­man Ken­wyn Phillip said the cor­po­ra­tion was in­un­dat­ed with calls from res­i­dents for wa­ter, wors­ened with lim­it­ed truck-borne sup­ply, and he had re­ceived re­ports of an al­leged wa­ter truck­ing rack­et be­ing car­ried out by cor­po­ra­tion work­ers. Some SGRC work­ers were ac­cused of charg­ing res­i­dents be­tween $300 and $500 per truck­load of wa­ter.

Yes­ter­day, Browne said the min­istry acts as the over­sight and co­or­di­nat­ing au­thor­i­ty for all mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and is em­pow­ered to com­mis­sion an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the op­er­a­tions of the cor­po­ra­tion to as­cer­tain whether any breach of the ex­ist­ing laws or reg­u­la­tions has tak­en place.

Browne added, “In this re­gard, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary has di­rect­ed that a spe­cial au­dit in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the op­er­a­tions of the wa­ter truck­ing ser­vice be­ing un­der­tak­en at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion be con­duct­ed in light of nu­mer­ous pro­ce­dur­al ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and con­cerns raised dur­ing the en­quiry in­to the al­leged com­plaint.”

“The min­istry al­so notes that sim­i­lar com­plaints of il­le­gal wa­ter truck­ing have been un­earthed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty across var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties in T&T and that the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties has com­mit­ted to im­ple­ment­ing a se­ries of mea­sures aimed at en­hanc­ing en­force­ment and en­sur­ing com­pli­ance with its gov­ern­ing act.

“These ac­tions in­clude leg­isla­tive re­view and in­crease of fines, en­hanced wa­ter ser­vices in com­mu­ni­ties with­out pipe-borne wa­ter, en­hanced in­ves­ti­ga­tions and en­force­ment, in­creased en­gage­ment with af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, and in­creased mon­i­tor­ing ef­forts to pre­vent il­le­gal truck­ing.”

Browne said these mea­sures form part of a proac­tive strat­e­gy to curb il­le­gal wa­ter truck­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and im­prove ac­cess to ser­vices across T&T.

“The aim is to de­ter il­le­gal op­er­a­tions, en­hance ser­vice de­liv­ery, and bet­ter ad­dress com­mu­ni­ty wa­ter needs. This ap­proach will al­so ad­dress any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties un­earthed with­in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion or any oth­er mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion.

“Mean­time, the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions will con­tin­ue to co­or­di­nate with WASA to en­sure the ef­fec­tive and re­li­able de­liv­ery of truck-borne wa­ter in com­mu­ni­ties with­out ac­cess to a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply,” Browne said.

On Mark’s fur­ther queries, Browne didn’t have the date when the spe­cial au­dit in SGRC was au­tho­rised and be­gan. On con­clu­sion date, Browne said, “This is on­go­ing work. It’s very dif­fi­cult to put pa­ra­me­ters of time on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of this na­ture. It re­al­ly de­pends on what’s un­earthed and whether there’s demon­stra­tion that there are fur­ther mat­ters to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed or en­quired up­on.”