Gonzales: 9 new managers for WASA

MINISTER of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales said WASA will hire nine new managers as its executive team, including a new CEO, a position now held by Kelvin Romain. The minister was speaking to reporters on June 18 at a signing ceremony for the National Water Sector Transformation Programme at his ministry.

Reporters asked about the proposed restructuring of WASA.

"Restructuring is on its way and we hit a very important milestone last week with the HRAC – Human Resource Advisory Committee – which approved the terms and conditions of the new executive."

He said nine people were to be appointed to senior leadership positions.

"We expect the (WASA) board will make a very important announcement on that in the coming weeks because they have gotten the green light to proceed with it.

"Once that is done, the next level of leadership will be about 34 deputies to the nine that we are bringing on board. That will happen in the coming months."

He said the focus was now on WASA's leadership.

"All of the reports would have indicated that is too large and it is impeding the work of the authority. So the focus, at this part of the transformation, is on restructuring the leadership of the organisation.

"With respect to the workers that I need for these projects, they just need to keep focused, because we have a lot of work to do in the coming 12 months. So it will keep them very busy."

He said the new team will be a mix of local, regional and international managers.

Gonzales justified the change by saying very few people have had experience in engaging in the wide-scale transformation of a water utility company.

"That is why the search was far. It was wide. The CEO, I am told, is going to be a foreigner."

He said the changes will happen within the coming weeks.

Among the new managers will be a female Trinidad and Tobago national who had gone abroad to work in the water sector, Gonzales said.