The Public Utilities Minister says “persons will be employed on a more permanent basis” at WASA with the streamlining of the authority’s new executive.
The Minister says this is meant to result in a reduction in the contract employment bill at WASA which cost WASA $466.5 million dollars in fiscal 2024.
However, the Minister also says, "that does not mean retrenchment in any way".
The Minister was responding to questions from an Opposition MP in Parliament today.
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.
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