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For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has ac­cused cur­rent Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath of us­ing a re­cent state­ment on fix­ing leaks at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate as a po­lit­i­cal dis­trac­tion from what Gon­za­les de­scribed as cost­ly em­ploy­ment prac­tices at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

Gon­za­les made the ac­cu­sa­tion in a me­dia re­lease, is­sued af­ter Padarath’s state­ment in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day. Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Padarath re­port­ed that 20 of 21 leaks at Point Lisas had been re­paired and al­leged that the is­sue had been ne­glect­ed dur­ing Gon­za­les’ tenure as min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les re­ject­ed the claim, de­scrib­ing Padarath’s com­ments as a cal­cu­lat­ed di­ver­sion from al­le­ga­tions raised by the Op­po­si­tion last week.