The state-owned Barbados Water Authority (BWA) is sticking to its guns that local construction firm, Innotech Services Limited uprooted the community tanks from around the island specifically to sell to help recoup some of the millions of dollars owed to it by the authority.
Both BWA chairperson Leodean Worrell and general manager Keithroy Halliday maintained the position in light of an email that came into the possession of Barbados TODAY this afternoon which appeared to suggest that it was the BWA which actually gave instructions to Innotech to remove the tanks for the purpose of sanitizing them.
Former manager of the recently disbanded corporate communications and Rapid Response Unit of the BWA, Joy-Ann Haigh told Barbados TODAY this afternoon she had given Innotech Services verbal instructions to remove, sanitize and reinstate all the community tanks during the weeks leading up to Christmas, as was the standard practice under the programme since 2016.
[caption id="attachment_285534" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
Joy-Ann Haigh and Leodeane Worrell[/caption]
“I did send the instructions, which is a fact. I told them verbally. I received correspondence from them to confirm receipt. I believe that there was miscommunication, because people in there [BWA] should have known that this [removal of the tanks at this time] was the norm. It seemed to be a genuine mistake,” Haigh, who was one of the scores sent home earlier this month as part of Government's restructuring programme, said.
In an email dated November 16, 2018, addressed to the BWA and to Haigh's attention, project manager of Innotech Services David Tomlinson confirmed the verbal instructions.
“We confirm your verbal instruction to remove, sanitize and reinstate all the community tanks that are currently deployed in the field (36 no). Consistent with the programme in 2016 and 2017, we will aim to have this operation complete the week before Christmas and our personnel and equipment is {sic}again on standby during the Christmas period,” Innotech's project manager wrote.
The correspondence went on to tell the water works company that for ease of recording the movements, the same numbered tanks will be reinstated in the same location from which they were taken.
“In the meantime, if we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to make contact,” Tomlinson concluded.
But Worrell was adamant that the timing of those instructions was totally unrelated to last week's action by Innotech to take up the tanks which it had leased to the BWA for the supply of potable water to northern parishes of Barbados which had been experiencing chronic outages or shortages.
“This is to confirm that Innotech's removal of the tanks was under the specific instructions of the management of Innotech due to non-payment of outstanding bills,” she insisted.
The BWA chairman explained that the community tanks are gravity-pressured and as such had to be removed regularly for chlorination and health and safety reasons.
“I also know for a fact that in addition to the monthly fixed rental cost, the BWA paid an additional cost for removal, transportation to and from the sites, insulation and in some instances, even the rental of the land on which those tanks stood,”Worrell told Barbados TODAY.
She echoed last week’s comments of Minister of Energy and Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams that as far as he and the BWA are concerned, the removal of the tanks was a repudiation by Innotech of the contract of November 2015 and as such a breach which he accepted.
With respect to the correspondence which Innotech's project manager David Tomlinson sent to the former rapid response unit head Joy-Ann Haigh confirming her instructions to remove the tanks, the BWA's general manager told Barbados TODAY tonight that no such document exists in the utility company's records.
Meanwhile, the BWA head said work was well underway in replacing the community tanks.
When contacted, chairman of Innotech Anthony DaSilva again insisted that he had no intention of discussing the dispute with the BWA in public.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
The post Water twist appeared first on Barbados Today.
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