WASA wages vs their overtime

[Ben_spanna]

So with this taken from the petrotrin thread, I'm now left wondering what is that same contrast in WASA like?
You know how WASA like ot come fix leaks after hours and on public holidays and night times, I do wonder why the overtime wages are like and if they could possibly be cut by 60% if their employees were to actually WORK during their allotted times.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert.
Despite facing a financial bind, the monthly overtime bill at State-owned Petrotrin is $22 million, while its annual wage bill to its 5,000 employees amounts to $2 billion.

This was what was revealed before a Joint Select Committee (JSC) chaired by Finance Minister Colm Imbert on Energy Affairs, as senior management of Petrotrin was yesterday interrogated into the operations of the energy company at the ANR Robinson Room, Tower D, Port-of-Spain

[zoom rader]

It's the same with TTEC, they come in the night to do line repairs.

[Redman]

If you listen to the JSC its the same with AAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL the failing state enterprises.

So we all paying through we nose to enable public sector employees to eat ah food.
This going on years.

I saw the CAL session-pilots raping the company one pilot getting 100 FREE FLIGHTS to US in one YEAR

[thelem-again]

Well wasa, ministry of works and sometimes ttec need to do most of their work outside of working hours due to traffic congestion.

I remember a time a worker told me that they were doing repairs on the bus route at 6am and a senior police officer came and threaten and run them stating that they need to “go from here because they would cause traffic”.

We have a poor traffic management system in this country. Hence why coosals and Sammy do their big projects at night as well.

[zoom rader]

If you listen to the JSC its the same with AAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL the failing state enterprises.

So we all paying through we nose to enable public sector employees to eat ah food.
This going on years.

I saw the CAL session-pilots raping the company one pilot getting 100 FREE FLIGHTS to US in one YEAR

That's why it's time to privatise the lot.

[goalpost]

It's the same with TTEC, they come in the night to do line repairs.

TTEC emergency crews are shift tho.

If a job takes place at night that does not involve emergency, its usually because, in terms of reliability to the electrical grid, it's the best time.

[hydroep]

If the discussion is about State Institutions' abuse of overtime then Customs & Excise Division takes the cake. Cannot recall an occasion when they didn't charge overtime to process documents, ever...

[Rovin]

workers does want to milk any state enterprise run by d govt

apparently d govt cud afford it cause they have a bottomless money pit or if dem ministers cud teef well we cud take a lil ting too ......

[zoom rader]

It's the same with TTEC, they come in the night to do line repairs.

TTEC emergency crews are shift tho.

If a job takes place at night that does not involve emergency, its usually because, in terms of reliability to the electrical grid, it's the best time.

It may be so for the night shift crew. I have seen this done before

[MaxPower]

Wasa workers by the plant living the dream...i mean marijuana and overtime tripling the salary? King

[urbandilema]

It's the same with TTEC, they come in the night to do line repairs.

TTEC emergency crews are shift tho.

If a job takes place at night that does not involve emergency, its usually because, in terms of reliability to the electrical grid, it's the best time.

well said

[infinite_RPM]

I not sure about other positions but I see a Wasa PPO payslip and them men take home is less than 9k.. I always thought ppos used to make mad money

[The_Honourable]

WASA remains burden on taxpayers
...over­staffed by some 2,000 em­ploy­ees

Aged in­fra­struc­ture, over­staffing, an in­abil­i­ty to raise enough rev­enue to meet its ex­pen­di­ture, and a heavy de­pen­dence on tax­pay­ers for its sur­vival, were some of the keys rea­sons cit­ed by Gov­ern­ment to sup­port its de­ci­sion to close down state-owned oil com­pa­ny Petrotrin.

How­ev­er, these is­sues are not on­ly lim­it­ed to Petrotrin, and can eas­i­ly de­scribe the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

WASA's fi­nan­cial fig­ures paint a wor­ry­ing pic­ture.

Ac­cord­ing to the fig­ures from the last fis­cal year, WASA's ex­pen­di­ture was $2.88 bil­lion. WASA's in­come for that pe­ri­od was on­ly $709 mil­lion.

In or­der to off­set this huge short­fall be­tween in­come and ex­pen­di­ture, the Gov­ern­ment had to pro­vide a sub­ven­tion of $1.9 bil­lion.

Last year's sub­ven­tion was not an anom­aly though as Gov­ern­ment has had to fork out as much as $10 bil­lion in the last five years to help keep WASA afloat.

Of the to­tal ex­pen­di­ture, WASA had last fis­cal, per­son­al ex­pen­di­ture in­clud­ing salaries, over­time, and al­lowances amount­ed to 38 per cent.

Per­son­al ex­pen­di­ture in WASA last year alone amount­ed to $1.1 bil­lion.

Over­time for last year alone ac­count­ed for $126 mil­lion.

"With­out the Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion, WASA would not be able to cov­er its op­er­at­ing ex­pen­di­ture such as pay­ing its wage bills or meet­ing its oblig­a­tions to con­trac­tors," the 15th re­port from the Par­lia­ment's Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) stat­ed.

Se­vere­ly over­staffed

One of the rea­sons for WASA's hefty wage bill is the fact that it is se­vere­ly over­staffed.

WASA cur­rent­ly has ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,150 em­ploy­ees, both dai­ly and month­ly paid, on its pay­roll.

The com­pa­ny is over­staffed by some 2,000 em­ploy­ees.

Two-thirds of WASA's labour force is in­volved in "field op­er­a­tions".

"When com­pared to its re­gion­al coun­ter­parts, the stan­dard for field work is sev­en em­ploy­ees per thou­sand con­nec­tions. WASA cur­rent­ly op­er­ates at around 13 em­ploy­ees per thou­sand con­nec­tions. This is ap­prox­i­mate­ly twice the size of its re­gion­al coun­ter­parts," the PAC re­port stat­ed.

One way to help WASA in­crease its rev­enue is to in­crease the wa­ter rates.

The Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) is cur­rent­ly in the sec­ond phase of the Price Re­view Process for WASA, which in­cludes "the cir­cu­la­tion of var­i­ous con­sul­ta­tive doc­u­ments for stake­hold­er feed­back".

WASA rates were last re­viewed and im­ple­ment­ed 25 years ago in 1993.

Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Bench­mark­ing Net­work for Wa­ter and San­i­ta­tion Util­i­ties (IB­NET), T&T's wa­ter rates are the sec­ond low­est in the Caribbean re­gion.

T&T's wa­ter rate per cu­bic me­tre is 31 cents US.

The wa­ter rate in the Ba­hamas is the high­est in the re­gion at US$3.72 per cu­bic me­tre.

The wa­ter rate for the ma­jor­i­ty of the coun­tries in the re­gion, in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica, was more than US$1 per cu­bic me­tre.

But even if WASA is able to get more mon­ey through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of high­er wa­ter rates they still face sev­er­al in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges that makes the au­thor­i­ty in­ef­fi­cient.

Debt port­fo­lio of $5.37 bil­lion as at De­cem­ber 2017

WASA was es­tab­lished in Sep­tem­ber 1965.

At that time to­tal dai­ly wa­ter pro­duc­tion in T&T was 45 mil­lion gal­lons per day.

WASA's to­tal dai­ly pro­duc­tion now stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 220 mil­lion gal­lons per day.

This rep­re­sents a 400 per cent in­crease in 43 years.

WASA's in­fra­struc­ture, how­ev­er, did not im­prove as much and this has re­sult­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant loss in treat­ed wa­ter through leak­ages.

Be­tween 43 and 50 per cent of WASA's wa­ter is lost through leak­ages.

The in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard for dai­ly wa­ter loss is be­tween 15 and 20 per cent.

"Giv­en the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing WASA, the Au­thor­i­ty was un­able to fi­nance an ex­ten­sive ex­er­cise to re­place all aged in­fra­struc­ture in the coun­try that were over 40 years old," the PAC re­port stat­ed.

"This was a ma­jor area of con­cern be­cause most of the pipelines/plants have a use­ful life of 25 years," it stat­ed.

It is es­ti­mat­ed to cost $3 bil­lion to re­place WASA's age­ing in­fra­struc­ture, trans­mis­sion, and dis­tri­b­u­tion lines.

This age­ing in­fra­struc­ture is re­spon­si­ble for the more than 2,000 leaks that WASA says needs re­pairs.

Ear­li­er this month, thou­sands of cit­i­zens along the East-West cor­ri­dor were left with­out wa­ter for two full days when a 36-inch pipeline rup­tured along the Beetham High­way.

Sev­er­al schools and of­fices in and around the cap­i­tal city had to be dis­missed ear­ly dur­ing those days be­cause there was no wa­ter.

Even if WASA was to turn­around overnight and be­come prof­itable the au­thor­i­ty still has a debt port­fo­lio of $5.37 bil­lion as at De­cem­ber 2017.

The ma­jor­i­ty of that debt is $3.7 bil­lion for the loan port­fo­lios of Gov­ern­ment guar­an­teed fa­cil­i­ties tak­en by WASA.

The debt al­so in­cludes $403 mil­lion to­ward the De­sal­cott Loan Fa­cil­i­ty and $136.9 mil­lion due to De­sal­cott for the pur­chase of processed de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter.

"Of­fi­cials from WASA stat­ed that over the next five years, cost re­duc­tions, as well as in­creas­es in rev­enue, will be utilised to re­duce the ac­cru­al bal­ance over the medi­um and long-term," the PAC stat­ed.

The weak­ness in WASA's fi­nan­cial re­port­ing has al­so caused dif­fi­cul­ties.

The ex­ter­nal au­dits of fi­nan­cial state­ments for the fis­cal years end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2014 and 2015 com­menced Oc­to­ber last year.

When the PAC met in De­cem­ber last year it had to ex­am­ine WASA au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for the pe­ri­od 2008 to 2013.

"Ac­count­abil­i­ty to Par­lia­ment for the util­i­sa­tion of pub­lic funds, was weak­ened by WASA's fail­ure to sub­mit its au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for scruti­ny in a man­ner con­sis­tent with the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Acts stip­u­lat­ed six month pe­ri­od," the PAC stat­ed.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/wasa-rem ... fa0bd836de

[hustla_ambition101]

Always seeing a wasa crew where 1 worker or a backhoe doing all the work while 10 others stand around looking on, laughing and talking.

[nervewrecker]

I not sure about other positions but I see a Wasa PPO payslip and them men take home is less than 9k.. I always thought ppos used to make mad money

Wasa salary eh all that. Pardner is one, said my salary was bigger.

[infinite_RPM]

Always seeing a wasa crew where 1 worker or a backhoe doing all the work while 10 others stand around looking on, laughing and talking.

Normally a crew to repair a line would be a handful of workers.. but if work going on, the zone manager would come down, TO will come down, pipeline engineer would visit the site and the system operators to isolate the worksite. Maybe even health and safety..

While u might only see one or two people in the hole, you surely can't expect every single person on the job site to be in the hole.

[nervewrecker]

Always seeing a wasa crew where 1 worker or a backhoe doing all the work while 10 others stand around looking on, laughing and talking.

Normally a crew to repair a line would be a handful of workers.. but if work going on, the zone manager would come down, TO will come down, pipeline engineer would visit the site and the system operators to isolate the worksite. Maybe even health and safety..

While u might only see one or two people in the hole, you surely can't expect every single person on the job site to be in the hole.

Everyone does pass and feel they know what going on. Thats the problem.
You tell 99% if them get in that hole and bail water they wont but they watching the men salary.
Salary comes with the job..

[hustla_ambition101]

Highly doubt that managers and engineers standing around smoking cigs and chatting like they on a block for hours though.
Bottom line is wasa is very inefficient in terms of operations and the fat needs to be trimmed from board and management go down.

[hydroep]

The 'axe' man commeth...

At this rate the only safe "Government" job looks like teaching...and people used to laugh at them saying: "those who can't, teach".

[skylinechild]

Highly doubt that managers and engineers standing around smoking cigs and chatting like they on a block for hours though.
Bottom line is wasa is very inefficient in terms of operations and the fat needs to be trimmed from board and management go down.

the problem is - they will trim from the bottom go up thou....
never from the top go down...

[hustla_ambition101]

Highly doubt that managers and engineers standing around smoking cigs and chatting like they on a block for hours though.
Bottom line is wasa is very inefficient in terms of operations and the fat needs to be trimmed from board and management go down.

the problem is - they will trim from the bottom go up thou....
never from the top go down...

True...and is temps who usually go first. Too bad many of the newer temps focus is on flam and not saving and investing.

[neilsingh100]

In terms of the cost of productivity ratio (i.e. salary/productivity of workers) the ratings are as follows:
1. Petrotrin
2. TSTT
3. WASA
4. T&TEC

[ProtonPowder]

The 'axe' man commeth...

At this rate the only safe "Government" job looks like teaching...and people used to laugh at them saying: "those who can't, teach".

This and jobs in ministry of finance. I wonder if anybody notice how much vacancies going out for valuations division.
The property tax scheme creating at least 300 direct jobs.

When government change and the contract done, them done too though.

[skylinechild]

The 'axe' man commeth...

At this rate the only safe "Government" job looks like teaching...and people used to laugh at them saying: "those who can't, teach".

This and jobs in ministry of finance. I wonder if anybody notice how much vacancies going out for valuations division.
The property tax scheme creating at least 300 direct jobs.

When government change and the contract done, them done too though.

actually the ploy is you give contacts like norm...and right before elections you give a HUGE contract for whatever building / proposal / vessel / whatever....so the new incoming govt (weather its u or ur back in opposition) has to proceed with it....and if they scrap it is level litigation lawsuits.

so if u win elections you continue to thief out the $$$ from the treasury as you now have a big "contract" for whatever...if u loose elections and contract is scrapped by d new govt your lawyers will ensure you win the case & litigation fees are paid by the state.

[The_Honourable]

WASA on the chopping block. The government will do as the same with petrotrin that began last year, start feeding information to the public on "why we need to do something about wasa" and then drop the axe.

When government change and the contract done, them done too though.

actually the ploy is you give contacts like norm...and right before elections you give a HUGE contract for whatever building / proposal / vessel / whatever....so the new incoming govt (weather its u or ur back in opposition) has to proceed with it....and if they scrap it is level litigation lawsuits.

so if u win elections you continue to thief out the $$$ from the treasury as you now have a big "contract" for whatever...if u loose elections and contract is scrapped by d new govt your lawyers will ensure you win the case & litigation fees are paid by the state.

This is exactly what happened with the Point Fortin and Arima hospitals. Of course the current government went through with the construction and will take full credit when it finishes.

[skylinechild]

WASA on the chopping block. The government will do as the same with petrotrin that began last year, start feeding information to the public on "why we need to do something about wasa" and then drop the axe.

When government change and the contract done, them done too though.

actually the ploy is you give contacts like norm...and right before elections you give a HUGE contract for whatever building / proposal / vessel / whatever....so the new incoming govt (weather its u or ur back in opposition) has to proceed with it....and if they scrap it is level litigation lawsuits.

so if u win elections you continue to thief out the $$$ from the treasury as you now have a big "contract" for whatever...if u loose elections and contract is scrapped by d new govt your lawyers will ensure you win the case & litigation fees are paid by the state.

This is exactly what happened with the Point Fortin and Arima hospitals. Of course the current government went through with the construction and will take full credit when it finishes.

thats what always happens every 5 yrs bruh.... both red and yellow parties do it...and the sheeple follow blindly...
forgot to say also when they loose they use the speech " the voice of ppl is the voice of God"

[The_Honourable]

Agreed... and the throwing out of policies instead of building on it every 5 years is what also keeping back the country.

[skylinechild]

Agreed... and the throwing out of policies instead of building on it every 5 years is what also keeping back the country.

Correct. this is what keeps us back as a people. the 5 yr scape goat clause.

things we should have - but dont

1. properly functioning infrastructure -roads and highways -
2. properly functioning mass transit service
3. recycle stations and a mass recycling plant - not just bury and wait to decompose.
4. wind farms on the north east of the country to generate (free) electricity to distribute
5. proper laws that serves all and not one.

[The_Honourable]

WASA $91m a month wage shocker



At a time when the coun­try is en­grossed in the pos­si­ble fall­out of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery clo­sure, comes word that month­ly salaries at the state-run Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) run at more than $91 mil­lion. This pays some 5,150 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees and in­cludes tem­po­rary and con­tract work­ers and means in one year the au­thor­i­ty spends over $1.1 bil­lion in salaries alone.

WASA chair­man Rom­ney Thomas gave those fig­ures in re­sponse to ques­tions from the Sun­day Guardian about the au­thor­i­ty’s wage bill.

“Av­er­age month­ly salary and wages $91.475m,” Thomas wrote via What­sapp.

Asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion if the amount was $91 mil­lion, he replied, “Yep.”

Dur­ing a re­cent re­port, the Par­lia­ment’s Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) said WASA is over­staffed by some 2,000 em­ploy­ees. The com­mit­tee said in the last fis­cal year, WASA’s ex­pen­di­ture amount­ed to $2.88 bil­lion while its in­come for the same pe­ri­od was $709 mil­lion. The short­fall of $1.9 bil­lion was cov­ered by a gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion.

Over the last decade, gov­ern­ment has forked out $10 bil­lion in sub­ven­tions to WASA.

At a time when there is more scruti­ny on the way mon­ey is spent at state-owned en­ter­pris­es, WASA’s fi­nan­cial fig­ures raise many con­cerns.

The Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) was sup­posed to re­view WASA’s fi­nan­cial state­ments to be­gin a rate re­view ear­li­er this year, but that has not been done as the RIC says they don’t have the in­for­ma­tion they need to be­gin the process.

A source at the RIC told the Sun­day Guardian that even if a rate re­view be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 27, it would not be com­plet­ed be­fore the end of Jan­u­ary 2019.

Un­til then, cit­i­zens will con­tin­ue to pay 31 cents US per cu­bic me­tre of wa­ter—al­most a third of the re­gion­al bench­mark price of US$1 per cu­bic me­tre of wa­ter, leav­ing lit­tle hope that a rate in­crease can start to bridge the gap in the au­thor­i­ty’s in­come and ex­pen­di­ture in the near fu­ture.

The au­thor­i­ty al­so con­tin­ues to lose wa­ter every day, as its age­ing in­fra­struc­ture needs a $3 bil­lion cash in­jec­tion for re­pairs and re­place­ment of trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion lines.

In June, most cit­i­zens were shocked to learn that Petrotrin’s wage bill amount­ed to some $2.19 bil­lion year­ly or an av­er­age of $45,000 per em­ploy­ee month­ly (see side­bar). At the time, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan said the clo­sure of Petrotrin was in part brought on by the ex­or­bi­tant wage bill.

Yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte told the Sun­day Guardian he is well aware of WASA’s wage bill.

“Of course, I get re­ports from WASA on a month­ly and a quar­ter­ly ba­sis, so I am ful­ly aware of WASA’s po­si­tion. I am aware and stay in touch with my board, as a min­is­ter I am very hands-on,” he said.

Le Hunte de­clined to an­swer when asked if he be­lieves a month­ly $91 mil­lion wage bill is sus­tain­able giv­en the coun­try’s cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion and es­pe­cial­ly in light of the move to shut down Petrotrin’s re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions be­cause it is drain­ing the coun­try’s fi­nances. In­stead, he re­it­er­at­ed that his fo­cus at WASA is not re­trench­ing work­ers but cut­ting out con­trac­tors to save mon­ey.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this week, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so said Gov­ern­ment is not at this time con­sid­er­ing any staff re­duc­tions at WASA or the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

“If you’re pay­ing em­ploy­ees and con­trac­tors al­so and you fo­cus on re­mov­ing con­trac­tors and let work­ers do the job they’re paid for, you’re sav­ing mon­ey,” Row­ley said.

“WASA wasn’t cre­at­ed to cre­ate jobs but to sup­ply wa­ter. If you have peo­ple be­ing paid twice for the same job, the con­sid­er­a­tion isn’t re­duc­ing jobs by con­trac­tors, but us­ing them where they’re ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary and let­ting em­ploy­ees on the pay­roll do the jobs.”

Again re­in­forc­ing the PM’s stance on the state en­ti­ty yes­ter­day, Le Hunte said, “I think the Prime Min­is­ter was clear about the in­ten­tion to deal with any WASA work­ers—he made his state­ment very clear—the fo­cus of our ac­tiv­i­ty at WASA is util­is­ing the work­ers that we have at WASA to deal with the in­her­it­ed is­sues that we got at WASA in try­ing to fix the leaks, to fix the prob­lems at WASA. I don’t where whether the bill is this, whether the bill is that, this is what we are do­ing.”

The Petrotrin com­par­i­son

In June, Petrotrin’s board put out ads in the dai­ly news­pa­pers re­veal­ing its an­nu­al $4.15 bil­lion in op­er­at­ing costs.

Two months lat­er, on Au­gust 28, Petrotrin chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet de­scribed the com­pa­ny’s re­fin­ery as a can­cer and an­nounced its clo­sure. On Fri­day, Es­pinet an­nounced that Petrotrin would cease all op­er­a­tions on No­vem­ber 30 and its em­ploy­ees would be giv­en their ex­it pack­ages on that day.

The state-owned oil gi­ant has 3,437 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees and 1,229 tem­po­rary em­ploy­ees. In June the com­pa­ny said its wage bill made up 52.8 per cent of that cost or $2.19 bil­lion.

The av­er­age month­ly salary of a per­ma­nent em­ploy­ee is $45,000 while tem­po­rary em­ploy­ees have an av­er­age salary of $21,000 month­ly, the com­pa­ny said. The com­pa­ny al­so re­vealed its over­time bill for 2016 and 2017 was an av­er­age $22.7 mil­lion per month.

Speak­ing about the Petrotrin re­struc­tur­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Mara­bel­la on Sep­tem­ber 6, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan said there was a car­pen­ter at Petrotrin who earned $70,000 in over­time in one month.

Khan said Petrotrin work­ers were “by and large re­spon­si­ble for their own demise.”

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/wasa-91m ... 82cc7f3e5e

[The_Honourable]

Once again WASA needs $1.8bn from gov't to run its operations.