Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has slammed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), call­ing out their trans­for­ma­tion plan and ap­point­ment of Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, whom he de­scribed as a “failed CEO from Bar­ba­dos,” to helm the agency. He de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap the trans­for­ma­tion plan, say­ing it cost the tax­pay­er $13.4 mil­lion and would have sent home 2,500 work­ers.

Padarath de­liv­ered the scathing at­tack dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion on the mo­tion to adopt the re­port of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee on Mon­day night.

“They brought in a failed CEO from Bar­ba­dos who had very lit­tle track record in terms of change man­age­ment, in terms of chang­ing out the au­thor­i­ty. In­stead, they were look­ing to pass the buck on to some­body else for why the trans­for­ma­tion plan would have failed, be­cause there was no po­lit­i­cal will to get it done,” Padarath said.