Imbroglio: an extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation.
District A City Council Member Joe Giarrusso spoke with WWL's Newell Normand on Friday to address the latest imbroglio involving the Sewerage and Water Board.
It's been a week since it was learned more than $133-million dollars in unpaid bills is owed to the SWB.
It's also been learned an Inspector General investigation into the billing practices of the SWB has found fraud in the form of bill fixing by and on the behalf of SWB employees, family members and friends.
Giarrusso says its problems like this that make scar the reputation of the SWB and continue to drag down the image of the embattled utility.
"This is the most front-ward facing single thing you do with customers all the time, it effects their pocket books--and not only do you got to get it right, but then when you have insider dealing, even if it's on a limited basis, it’s going to upset the public—and rightfully so, when they get a bill that’s just too high.”
For Giarrusso, he says 82% of all complaints lodged with the city deal with the Sewerage and Water Board.
“If you fix the billing the other problems will help restore credibility,” He says. “As long as the billing remains the problem, whether it’s somebody getting a bad bill, or this fraud that happens internally, you will continue to hurt the credibility of the organization.”
