00:00Former Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzalez is crying discrimination, water discrimination.
00:08The allocation for 2026, not one dollar was allocated to the Northwest Water Improvement Program.
00:16And because of that, WASA does not have money to fix pumps in Northwest Trinidad,
00:23to upgrade booster stations, and to engage in the appropriate actions so that communities in Northwest Trinidad,
00:31in Caranange, in Dago Martin, in Paramin, in Maraval, in Laventil, in Port of Spade, in Mount Hope,
00:38all of these communities are now suffering because they do not have access to a reliable supply of water
00:47because the government has not provided not one dollar.
00:52So that WASA can improve and maintain this infrastructure.
00:57The former minister is also questioning statements attributed to Minister of Public Utilities, Barry Puddarath,
01:03that the completion of the Bonaire Wastewater Treatment Plant will somehow boost water supply.
01:10I want to tell the people of the East-West Corridor here this morning,
01:13first and foremost, a wastewater plant is a plant that treats wastewater.
01:22A wastewater plant is a plant that treats water from your toilets.
01:32It treats water that comes from your bathrooms, water that leaves your home, and it goes into that plant.
01:38It is treated, and it is released back into the environment.
01:42It is not given for people to consume.
01:46The minister is so incompetent that you cannot believe that having spent one year in office,
01:53he does not know the difference between a wastewater treatment plant and a water treatment plant.
01:59However, Public Utilities Minister, Barry Puddarath, is rubbishing Gonzales' claims.
02:04When I spoke about the wastewater treatment plant, it is in tandem with fixing the operations within that area.
02:13And therefore, we are looking at other sources of water in which can be utilized in that area.
02:19With respect to Northwest Trinidad, Puddarath says government is sourcing the funding for repairs.
02:26They were not serviced over the last 10 years, and therefore, I inherited a situation where many of them are
02:32derelict.
02:33And therefore, constituencies that have continued to be held by the PNM, despite them being in office for 10 years,
02:40between 2015 to 2025, they did not service their own constituencies.
02:45And therefore, right now, we are looking at changing all those pumps.
02:50We are looking at identifying the funding for those pumps, and therefore, those things will be addressed.
02:57Some of the work have already started in terms of some of the dilapidated means.
03:01So, it is not a simple matter of just identifying block funding.
03:06Renasa Cutting, TV6 News.
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