Padarath: IDB-funded water projects to begin after Budget

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to meet the re­quire­ments for ac­cess­ing an In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) loan to ad­dress the coun­try’s wa­ter is­sues.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath said his min­istry was work­ing close­ly with the Min­istry of Plan­ning to se­cure the fund­ing. He said the Gov­ern­ment had in­her­it­ed not on­ly age­ing in­fra­struc­ture at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), but al­so a lack of fund­ing to im­prove it.

“This is a prob­lem that has been hap­pen­ing for quite a while. Com­ing in­to of­fice, we have done an as­sess­ment and au­dit of WASA’s fa­cil­i­ties, in­clu­sive of the treat­ment plants and the mains. A num­ber of the main in­fra­struc­tur­al projects will get un­der­way post-bud­get, and that will in­clude the treat­ment plants, mains across the length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It took them quite a while to do a lot of the scop­ing and iden­ti­fy the fund­ing.”