‘Cash-strapped’ GWI prepares to send 100 workers packing

‘Cash-strapped’ GWI prepares to send 100 workers packing — Patterson

May 27, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), David Patterson, has revealed that the executive management team of the ‘cash-strapped’ Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) has identified some 100 staffers to be sent home, effective the end of this month.

Opposition MP, David Patterson.

Patterson gave the heads up in a post on a social media platform on Tuesday and suggested that the staffers are to be made unemployed from June 1, 2021 and that “the usual lame excuse will be given, which is mainly GWI is financially challenged.”
He posited this to be the case, “instead of making operational changes, they are using this excuse to get rid of hard-working employees.”
The development announced by Patterson, comes in wake of a report by this publication that GWI in 2018 had spent $30M for a Christmas party and its anniversary celebrations.
The staggering figures are illustrated as expenditure by the company in an internal document, which has since been leaked to this publication.
At the beginning of the year, in January, the utility company’s Planning and Transportation Committee reportedly took some $260,000 for activities related to GWI 16th anniversary activities. Four months later in May that same year, just over $15.2M went towards clearance for the anniversary activities. GWI observed the anniversary at the end of May 2018.
This was followed by a subsequent disbursement, acknowledged for the month of June, for $9,325. Another amount totalling $50,000 was obtained in November 2018 for an anniversary advertisement, making the cumulative amount for GWI’s anniversary some $15.58M. Activities for the entity’s anniversary included a retreat, a prize giving and awards ceremony, held at the Ramada Princess Hotel. Finally, for the year, the document reveals that at the end of that year, the utility company hosted a Christmas party expending some $14.5M. As such, GWI for 2018, spent a total of $30M for its Christmas party and anniversary celebrations from its coffers.
The expenditure by the utility company is coming under focus in light of the company’s position that it is essentially cash-strapped, to the point where it was unable to pay its electricity bills for that year. It was reported last year that GWI owed the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) some $7 billion for the period 2018 to 2020.
According to Patterson, the development to retrench workers at GWI represents another assault on public sector workers that continues to go unchecked and reminded that earlier this month, the entire marketing staff of the Guyana Oil Company (GUYOIL) was summarily dismissed and that no reason was offered for the 36 persons being placed on the breadline.
Speaking to the cash woes at GWI, Patterson reminded of two major frauds of $30M and $100M at the utility company.
He said too that all the regions and central water treatment plants “have been running without sufficient chemicals to adequately treat the water according to WHO standards.”
Additionally, “there is a major shortage of treatment chemicals such as Lime, Alum, and Salt to treat water at these plants for over three months – that’s the main reason for GWI customers complaining about the poor quality of the water.”
He said that after millions of dollars were budgeted in 2020 and the 2021 budgets, the government reported that 92 percent of this amount was spent in 2020, but “despite this claim there is no Alum or Lime in the system – where did this money go?”
Patterson suggested that “despite this poor track record of obvious mismanagement, instead of GWI seeking to solve these issues, they are proceeding with a witch hunt against their employees—most of whom they suspect are supportive of the coalition.”
According to Patterson, “in the next week, over 100 staffers of GWI will be dismissed; GWI cannot be allowed to discriminate against these workers – after all, water is life and this unchecked assault on Guyanese will affect all of our lives, now or in the near future.”