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THE appointment of Dr Lennox Sealy as CEO and executive director tasked with the transformation of WASA is destined for failure, Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) political leader David Abdulah is predicting.
Abdulah said there is precedence that shows where executive chairmen put in charge of state institutions have failed. At a news conference on Sunday, he said one man cannot solve the problems at WASA.
“The model of executive chairmen running state institutions in this country has been a horrific and negative model.” He gave Malcolm Jones at Petrotrin, Calder Hart at Udecott and several others as examples.
“All of them were executive chairmen and all of them, because of the power arrogated unto themselves, lost control and did tremendous damage to TT. “The same thing, mark my words, will happen when you give one man so much power to control. It is bound to fail.”
Sealy recently assumed total control of WASA which a Cabinet sub-committee found had become an unproductive, unresponsive organisation that had deteriorated and no longer efficiently serves the country. Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales laid the Cabinet sub-committee's report in Parliament last Friday.
Abdulah also warned government against removing super gasoline from the market. Expressing concern at what effect the liberalisation of the fuel market could have on the country, he predicted that the working class and poor will be placed in further debt and poverty as the price of premium gas is significantly higher than super.
He said any increase in transportation cost will impact on the cost of living and further eat into the foreign exchange especially in the context of the refinery being closed and government refusing to sell it to Patriotic Energies and Technologies Co Ltd which is owned by the OWTU.
Abdulah also remembered Newsday’s South Bureau reporter Richardson Dhalai who died on February 26, and observed a moment’s silence in Dhalai's memory. He thanked Dhalai for his contribution to the media and for his coverage of issues particularly in the southland.
On International Women’s Day, which is being observed today, he said this was an appropriate occasion for the country, particularly men, to commit or recommit to stopping any and all forms of violence and abuse meted out to women.
He also expressed solidarity with Hatters Steel Orchestra and its members after their pan yard at Lady Hailes Avenue, San Fernando was broken into and instruments stolen.
Abdulah said the fact that people can break into a pan yard, and steal the national instrument of TT is a terrible reflection on the state of the country.
The post MSJ leader: WASA’s one-man ship can sink appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.