$600 million!
That’s how much it will cost the government to fund the planned Voluntary Separation of Employment Programme (VSEP) for the employees of the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).
According to a report in the Sunday Express however, the final exit packages for employees will be determined by the WASA board.
Just last week, Public Utilities Minister, Marvin Gonzales, announced that over 200 WASA managers would be separated from the utility in the first phase of restructuring.
A Cabinet sub-committee report on WASA said that WASA is bloated at both ends—at the management and worker levels.
The cost to run WASA is about $2.5 billion annually, while its revenue is about $800 million.
The WASA transformation plan was approved by Cabinet last week and it is proposed that the official roll out of the plan begins early in the 2023 financial year, which starts on October 1, 2022.
Gonzales told the Sunday Express that WASA would be looking to the Ministry of Finance to fund the VSEP package.
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