TWO STATE agencies recently had to untangle serious communications snafus.

The Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) apologised to a parliament committee after an official said 16 per cent of the country gets a constant water supply.

The correct figure, WASA said, should have been 34 per cent.

Telecommunications Services of TT (TSTT), which is in the business of communications, had to address calls for it to clear the air on its restructuring plans after information in formal filings was picked up by trade unions.

Amid retrenchment fears, TSTT said there was no final decision on the scope of its restructuring.

Such communication glitches are all too common from state agencies. But their frequency does not diminish their capacity to provoke anxiety, engender mistrust and worsen dissatisfaction. They reflect badly on the State.

WASA sought quickly to correct the record and apologised to the public for its error. But in the process, it only managed to underline just how woefully deficient its operations are.

The authority's clarification that the 16 per cent figure was correct, but related only to the month of February, and that this was an 'anomaly' due to the utility outage that occurred that month was of little comfort to anyone, especially considering that we are yet to receive any proper explanation for the event referred to.

Clearly, the apology that was needed was not only for its mistake before Parliament, but also for the widespread prevalence of intermittent water supply.

All of this was bad enough, but the timing rendered it worse.

It was only a few weeks ago that the minister responsible for WASA, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, confirmed steps had been taken to initiate a rate review, which could potentially lead to rate increases, depending on the findings of an independent regulator.

Meanwhile, a drip feed of information has led to speculation over the extent of possible retrenchment at TSTT.

The disclosures in securities filings have suggested third parties know more about the loose parameters of TSTT's plans and proposals than the public does.

Instead of being upfront on financing and other measures that are clearly already in train, the company has put itself in a position where it has been forced to be reactive to whatever manages to leak.

It has strictly interpreted what it calls 'good industrial relations practice,' but has seemingly not paid enough attention to what information might emerge through filings, and even though there have been no fetters on disclosures about its losses.

The disjunction between such approaches can only engender mistrust and raise doubts over the sincerity of the Government's pending TSTT review.

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