Security firms warn WASA to pay up $75M debt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pri­vate Se­cu­ri­ty As­so­ci­a­tion (TP­SA) is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to ur­gent­ly pay up an es­ti­mat­ed $75 mil­lion in out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to 13 con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, warn­ing that con­tin­ued non-pay­ment could re­sult in se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers re­fus­ing to re­port for du­ty.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, TP­SA spokesper­son Raquel-Ann Uzoe­me­ka said the as­so­ci­a­tion could no longer guar­an­tee of­fi­cers would con­tin­ue work­ing if their wages re­mained un­paid.

“We’re not threat­en­ing to with­hold ser­vices. What we’re say­ing is that we no longer have any con­trol over the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers de­ployed by our mem­ber com­pa­nies. We can­not guar­an­tee that em­ploy­ers will be able to mo­ti­vate staff to con­tin­ue work­ing with­out pay,” she said.