Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Fifty-four work­ers of Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion were ju­bi­lant yes­ter­day, af­ter Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er an­nounced that he had hand­ed over a cheque of $309,000 to re­hire them. The work­ers were re­trenched last week. "Thank You, Je­sus; Thank You, Je­sus," the work­ers shout­ed, as they hugged each oth­er on learn­ing of Warn­er's move.

The work­ers, who in­clud­ed lit­ter war­dens, were sent home af­ter May­or Natasha Navas in­formed them that there was in­suf­fi­cient fund­ing to pay their salaries un­til the end of the fi­nan­cial year in Sep­tem­ber. In a brief news con­fer­ence at the cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day, Warn­er said a cheque was hand­ed over to the cor­po­ra­tion last week to pay the work­ers. How­ev­er, Warn­er said Navas was look­ing at what mech­a­nism should be used.

"I have found the mon­ey to en­sure that the work­ers stay on. They will have their jobs." He al­so as­sured the work­ers that they should not be con­cerned about where the mon­ey was com­ing from, but be hap­py that they were go­ing to be re­hired. Deputy May­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar com­mend­ed the move by Warn­er to save the jobs of the work­ers. Na­gas­sar said Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was in­formed of the move to re­trench the work­ers, but had not re­spond­ed to date.

He, how­ev­er, dis­missed com­ments by Navas claim­ing that funds were mis­han­dled at the cor­po­ra­tion. "What we did was ex­tend the con­tracts of the dai­ly-paid work­ers. We did not want to send them home, so we ex­tend­ed the con­tracts.

"The mon­ey was used up to save the jobs of work­ers; not mis­used, as it is be­ing� al­leged." �