As the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) faces a $7.1 billion debt, Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte admitted that “over invoicing” of bills at the water company had become a common practice. There was also collusion with payments made, Le Hunte said which resulted in WASA’s debt skyrocketing.
Le Hunte made the disclosure as he discussed plans of improving WASA’s overall services in the coming year at his Woodbrook office recently. Le Hunte said WASA had confirmed and unconfirmed debt. The confirmed debt stood at $5 billion, Le Hunte said.
“And there is a lot of debt whereby people are saying this one tell them to do this job. There was not a proper tendering process to get such jobs done. Some of the debts at WASA people have put forward unverifiable claims. In some of them we have found the debt was not valid. There was collusion in creating debt within the company.” Some of the bills submitted, Le Hunte said have turned out to be “padded or a lot more than for the work actually done. Sometimes the debt was paid twice. Over invoicing was a common practice at WASA and other ministries.”
Le Hunte said WASA also discovered discrepancies with some of the work undertaken by contractors which had been paid for.
“Some of these matters are before the Attorney General and they are being investigated,” Le Hunte said.
Le Hunte said what was unacceptable and angers was people who turn off the “stopcocks” valve indiscriminately which is used to control the flow of water in certain communities. When the valve is closed, WASA would sometimes pay contractors to deliver a truck borne supply to the affected community.
He said what was equally disturbing was that some of the contractors sell the water to people who are in need of the essential element which WASA does not condone. Le Hunte described the move as a “lucrative business” as the contractor gets paid by WASA and the public, when the delivered water “is a free service.”