00:00While the Authority's revenue from collection amounted to just over $786.5 million,
00:08more than $964 million or 36.7% of the Authority's overall expenditure was spent on salaries and wages.
00:18Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzalez, when he appeared before the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives,
00:25while it examined the $3.044 billion allocation to the Public Utilities Ministry for fiscal 2025.
00:35WASA falls under the Public Utilities Ministry.
00:38Budget documents show that for fiscal 2024, WASA received an estimated allocation of $1.25 billion,
00:47but ended that financial year with a revised estimate of $1.77 billion.
00:54In fiscal 2025, WASA again received an estimated allocation of $1.25 billion.
01:02Kuva South MP Rudranathan Darsing posed the questions on behalf of the opposition about employment at WASA.
01:10Minister, if you was paying in the context of contract employment for personnel with $466,530,000 in 2024,
01:28now in 2025 you are reducing that by $66,582,000, how much less personnel are you paying with this sum?
01:41MP Darsing was referring to line 16 on the goods and services for WASA.
01:47We are currently restructuring and streamlining the executive leadership of the Water and Sewerage Authority
01:54and we anticipate at the end of this exercise, the Water and Sewerage Authority will not carry that huge bill of $66 or $399 million annually for contract employment.
02:06And that does not mean retrenchment in any way.
02:11So, Minister, if you was paying in the context of contract employment...
02:22The Public Utilities Minister said a number of those WASA employees would have been on short-term employment
02:28or their contracts would have expired over the years.
02:31And what we expect that with the streamlining of the executive leadership of the authority,
02:36there will be no need for this huge expenditure on the contract employment in the Water and Sewerage Authority.
02:43So that means you have retrenched workers at WASA?
02:50I did not see that.
02:52At this point, there was an intervention from House Speaker Bridget Annisette George, who chairs the Standing Finance Committee.
02:59If you are telling the meeting...
03:01I know we are all very anxious, but let's try and contain that.
03:11Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
03:13Madam Chair, we are currently restructuring and streamlining the executive leadership of the Water and Sewerage Authority.
03:20And we anticipate at the end of this exercise, the Water and Sewerage Authority will not carry that huge bill of $66 or $399 million annually for contract employment.
03:32And that does not mean retrenchment in any way.
03:37Minister Gonzalez said he would provide further details to the lower house in writing.
03:42In response to questions from TV6 News in March of this year, WASA's Chairman said that the authority at that time had a total of about 5,000 employees.
03:52WASA's new Chief Executive Officer is due to begin the job on November 1st.
03:57Jule Brown, TV6 News.
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