Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kadi­jah Ameen says sev­er­al re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions have made re­quests for fund­ing to pay tem­po­rary work­ers, and if the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion sub­mits such a re­quest, it will be re­viewed.

Ameen was re­spond­ing af­ter Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Deputy May­or Jo­van Roberts yes­ter­day con­firmed that the cor­po­ra­tion has ter­mi­nat­ed the ser­vices of all its short-term work­ers— few­er than 20 em­ploy­ees—for the month of June due to in­suf­fi­cient funds to pay them.

The cor­po­ra­tion ex­pects to re­in­state the work­ers in Ju­ly, as it hopes to re­ceive ad­di­tion­al fund­ing through the up­com­ing Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view.

“But we can’t ask the tem­po­rary work­ers to work for June, as there’s no mon­ey to pay them,” Roberts said.

He added that there is not even enough fund­ing to cov­er the cor­po­ra­tion’s month-end salary bill of $1.4 mil­lion for its 222 per­ma­nent work­ers or to pay pen­sion­ers.

“But where the tem­po­rary work­ers are con­cerned, the min­is­ter should be very much aware that all cor­po­ra­tions, at a meet­ing two months ago, in­di­cat­ed that we on­ly had suf­fi­cient funds to get us to May for short-term em­ploy­ment,” Roberts added.

Ari­ma is among sev­er­al re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions fac­ing fi­nan­cial con­straints.

Roberts said the main rea­son for the short­fall, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing month­ly salaries, was that the cor­po­ra­tion had been in­struct­ed to pay par­tial back­pay for Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers from its ex­ist­ing al­lo­ca­tion, which did not in­clude fund­ing for in­creased salaries or ar­rears.

“This took about five months of funds from the cor­po­ra­tion’s al­lo­ca­tion for salaries,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to a Guardian Me­dia query on the ter­mi­na­tion of the tem­po­rary work­ers, Ameen said, “Sev­er­al cor­po­ra­tions have made re­quests for fund­ing for tem­po­rary work­ers and it had been sup­plied. I don’t re­call see­ing such a re­quest from Ari­ma. Once they send it, it will be re­viewed.”

How­ev­er, Roberts said: “I’m un­sure what re­quest the min­is­ter is re­fer­ring to, as we would have put every­thing in our sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing re­quest to sup­ple­ment our 2026 al­lo­ca­tion in the Mid-Year Re­view. We would have sent the cor­po­ra­tion’s fac­tu­al fi­nan­cial po­si­tion to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, in­di­cat­ing all the short­falls we have.

“The cor­po­ra­tion sent its re­quest to the min­istry about two months ago seek­ing fund­ing for pay­ments for work­ers—tem­po­rary and per­ma­nent—and out­lin­ing the short­falls in­volved. So, I don’t see why we need to send any in­di­vid­ual spe­cif­ic re­quest again, as it’s not just the short-term work­ers; it’s al­so the salaried pub­lic ser­vants whom we don’t have mon­ey to pay.

“But even if they send mon­ey for tem­po­rary work­ers now, we can­not use it yet since the Min­istry of Fi­nance first has to in­crease the al­lo­ca­tion in the Re­view.”

The cor­po­ra­tion’s cur­rent fi­nan­cial po­si­tion is as fol­lows:

01 Per­son­nel Ex­pen­di­ture

001 Gen­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion

Salaries and Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowances — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

Re­mu­ner­a­tion to Coun­cil Mem­bers — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

003 Mar­kets and Abat­toirs

Salaries and Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowances — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

004 Parks and Recre­ation Grounds

Salaries and Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowances — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

02 Goods and Ser­vices

001 Gen­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion

Short-Term Em­ploy­ment — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

002 Pub­lic Health

Trav­el­ling and Sub­sis­tence — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.

04 To­tal Cur­rent Trans­fers and Sub­si­dies

007 House­holds

Pen­sions — bal­ance of pro­vi­sion in­suf­fi­cient for June.