GWI’s staff increased by 116% in 5 years with zero improvements – Minister Croal

Housing and Water Minister, Collin Croal on Friday presented on the $4 billion allocation for the sector in the 2020 budget, which he said will alleviate the burdens facing the sector and address key needs of the population.
Attention was given to the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), which has been suffering from 70 per cent water wastage along with a poor management structure resulting in millions of dollars in deficit. With that, the utility company has faced a record financial low.

While the ending of 2015 saw a generation of $1.3 billion in surplus, statistics from mid-August of this year showed almost $70 million in losses. During this time, the debts raised from $3.1 billion to over $13 billion – showing an increase of over 400 per cent.
Croal contended that much like the rest of the economy, the leadership and management of GWI under APNU/AFC were the worse in the company’s history. “Under APNU’s leadership and management, GWI lost its own identity even worse than its performance. GWI’s motto is ‘Water Is Life, Save It’. Under APNU, 70 per cent of all the water that the company produced is wasted.”
More alarmingly, the human resource increase was another issue under grave scrutiny. He pointed out that without any improvement in services offered, the staffing volume doubled in just five years.
“At the end of 2015, GWI employed about 600 people. Currently, GWI employs about 1319 persons, that is an increase of about 700 people or 116 per cent. Ironically, with no notable improvement in the level and quality of service to customers, and this has resulted in a decline in productivity of employees,” the Minister highlighted.
With the instalment of a new Board, Croal noted that the immediate focus is to embark on a comprehensive assessment of the “damage” that has been done, shifting its mandate to put customers at the top priority, and taking steps to ensure accountability. There are also plans to increase metering and treated water coverage as well as sanitisation, he added.

Housing backlog
In the area of housing, Croal reiterated that the APNU/AFC Government had no “plan of action” and thus resulted in a sector that was performing “below par, riddled with incompetence and void of empathy to the needs of the people.”
According to him, the coalition sought to defund the housing sector while it was being stifled with lack of Private Sector incentives and taxes on building materials, adding that land sales declined from $3.6 billion in 2014 to as low as $580 million in 2017.
The Central Housing and Planning Authority, which was left with some $8 billion in its coffers, was reduced to $3.6 billion in five years, Croal noted.
“It never met half the performance of the PPP/C Government – in 2018 and 2019 land sales were $1.49 billion and $1.84 billion respectively. House lots allocated went from 2440 in 2014 to as low as 776 in 2018; even after the evidence from the public outreach showed that housing needs were the most desired. In 2019 the coalition still could not do it, allocating 1220 house lots for that year,” he lamented.
As a result, the new Government is tasked with clearing a backlog of over 68,000 house lot applications, he said, pointing out that while former subject Minister, Annette Ferguson boasted about the 7000 house lots issued under APNU/AFC, the new PPP/C Administration’s manifesto speaks to 50,000 house lots in the first term in office.
He added that within four months, the Ministry is aiming to distribute over 2000 transports and titles, adding that there are plans to streamline Mortgage Interest Relief for low and middle-income homeowners and increasing the limit for low-income loans, and a reversal of VAT on building materials.
“In 2013, the PPP/C Government introduced the Mortgage Interest Relief initiative for persons with mortgages at the banks up to a ceiling of $30 million. In 2017, the coalition Government reduced the ceiling to $15 million. This reduction negatively impacted upon approximately 55 per cent of those borrowers,” Croal said. (G12)