Senior Reporter
Former public utilities minister Marvin Gonzales is calling for a criminal investigation into an alleged water trucking racket at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).
During his contribution to the debate on the Appropriation (Financial Year 2027) Bill, 2026 in Parliament on Saturday morning, Gonzales claimed some employees were deliberately depriving communities of pipeborne water to generate business for water truck contractors.
Gonzales said, “I am calling for a criminal investigation into the Water and Sewage Authority, particularly that water trucking issue, because it is bleeding money from the Water and Sewerage Authority, and many families are being impacted adversely by what is taking place… If it goes unsupervised, there are those inside of the organisation, they do not benefit and they do not wish for people to have a reliable supply of water. Because if they do so, they will have to pack up their trucks and they will not make a cent. But turn off valves, deprive the people of water and force them to request water trucks and somebody is making money and making a mint.”
This isn’t the first time Gonzales has raised such concerns.
During his tenure as line minister for WASA, he exposed an alleged multi-million-dollar water trucking racket in Morne Diablo, where more than 5,000 residents were reportedly forced to purchase water after private operators allegedly interfered with WASA’s supply.
On Saturday, Gonzales also questioned an almost $30 million increase in WASA’s allocation for water trucking services and raised concerns about contractors allegedly being paid twice to transport water through some of the authority’s tank farms.
He said, “When I look at the allocation for water trucks, it moved from 2026 estimates of $52.9 million to $82.7 million an increase by $30 million. If you want to know how WASA performing, this is something that you have to look at. Because the more people that are depending on water trucking services, it means that the Water and Sewerage Authority is not doing its work to provide pipe-borne water supply to the people of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Gonzales said he had welcomed current Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath’s earlier commitment to stamp out the water trucking racket because he had encountered similar practices during his tenure, but raised red flags over the tank farms allegedly not being connected to the water distribution system. Instead, he claimed, contractors were being paid to transport water to the tank farms and then receiving a second payment to deliver the same water to households.
“So the contractor takes the water, delivers it to the tank farm, he’s paid $1,200 for that trip. And when the tank farm is filled, the same contractor is taking water from the same tank farm and is being paid another $1,200. Racketeering,” Gonzales said.
However, Minister in the Ministry of Public Utilities Clyde Elder rejected Gonzales’ criticism of the increased water trucking allocation, claiming that the former People’s National Movement administration had left WASA with a huge water trucking bill.
Elder said, “What he didn’t tell us is that he left WASA with a $78 million bill that we have to now pay for water trucking. And for one of his favourite contractors, too… What he will not also say is that areas such as Penal, Debe, Mayaro, Princes Town, Barrackpore, WASA tells us that for all of the years they have been in power, they deliberately did not serve these areas with adequate supply of water. And what we have done now is that we have increased that allocation to ensure that these communities get water.”
He argued that the higher allocation was intended to address longstanding water shortages rather than being an indication of WASA’s poor performance.
Elder also turned Gonzales’ call for a criminal investigation back on the former administration, raising questions about an alleged $15 million contract awarded by WASA to a campaign manager shortly before the general election.
Elder added, “I want to call for a criminal investigation into a sole-select contract for $15 million awarded to a certain campaign manager weeks leading to the election. Fifteen million, sole-select, you know, sole-select. He don’t want a criminal investigation into that. I think we should investigate that.”
The minister also criticised the Opposition’s contributions to the budget debate, accusing PNM MPs of failing to present meaningful proposals to address the country’s challenges.
“They had no ideas. They had no plan. They had no retort. They had no analysis. They had no projections. They had no developmental solutions to offer,” Elder said.
He claimed Opposition members were more interested in attacking the Government and returning to power than providing solutions.
Guardian Media contacted Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath yesterday for a response to Gonzales’ allegations about the water trucking racket and the alleged double payments to contractors supplying WASA’s tank farms.
However, no response was received up to press time.
