KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SLRC) says it will not va­cate its Aranguez Main Road head­quar­ters de­spite a dead­line is­sued by the state-owned Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) for the Cor­po­ra­tion to leave the build­ing it has oc­cu­pied for more than 30 years.

SLRC chair­man Richard Wal­cott said the Cor­po­ra­tion has nowhere else to go af­ter plans to re­lo­cate staff to a new build­ing in El So­cor­ro were re­port­ed­ly halt­ed at the last minute.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Wal­cott said, “We’re not go­ing any­where. Let them put us out.”

Wal­cott in­sist­ed that em­ploy­ees would con­tin­ue re­port­ing for work at the ex­ist­ing lo­ca­tion un­til the Gov­ern­ment ap­proves a new lo­ca­tion.

He said the Cor­po­ra­tion had been prepar­ing to move af­ter be­ing in­formed that Cab­i­net had ap­proved a new build­ing on El So­cor­ro Main Road, but ac­cord­ing to him, the Gov­ern­ment changed its mind at the last minute.

Wal­cott said the re­ver­sal has left ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 em­ploy­ees un­cer­tain about their work­ing con­di­tions.

“This is to­tal dis­re­spect for the coun­cil. To­tal dis­re­spect for the staff. The staff don’t know what is hap­pen­ing. Peo­ple can­not work un­der this kind of con­di­tion. This is a frus­trat­ing mat­ter. You don’t know if you will be out to­mor­row, or you come to work and you on the pave­ment. No­body knows what is hap­pen­ing.”

Wal­cott al­so ac­cused MTS and the Min­istry of fail­ing to prop­er­ly com­mu­ni­cate with the Cor­po­ra­tion, say­ing em­ploy­ees had al­ready spent time and mon­ey prepar­ing for a move that did not hap­pen.

He fur­ther al­leged that the dis­pute was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, claim­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion was be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly.

Wal­cott said Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen con­tact­ed him a few days ago and in­di­cat­ed that arrange­ments would be made for the Cor­po­ra­tion to rene­go­ti­ate with MTS so it could re­main at the build­ing, while they work on the re­lo­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, up to yes­ter­day, he said no of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion had been re­ceived.

Wal­cott al­so claimed staff have had to deal with air-con­di­tion­ing prob­lems, ter­mites and oth­er main­te­nance is­sues, which he said cost the Cor­po­ra­tion thou­sands of dol­lars be­cause MTS failed to ad­dress them.

He said mem­bers are ea­ger to move to a more suit­able lo­ca­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly re­solve the mat­ter and en­sure that re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are treat­ed fair­ly.

But Min­is­ter Ameen is re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that the mat­ter was be­ing ig­nored.

She told Guardian Me­dia she has been in talks with the Cor­po­ra­tion and a meet­ing with all par­ties in­volved is ex­pect­ed to take place soon.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, Ameen said, “A meet­ing is card­ed with the chair­man and CEO of MTS, with the Cor­po­ra­tion and the PS and Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, for us to re­solve the is­sue. The San Juan Laven­tille Cor­po­ra­tion has iden­ti­fied an­oth­er build­ing to move in­to, but re­al­ly the ide­al thing is to pre­vent that dis­rup­tion. So I am in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the chair­man of the Cor­po­ra­tion, and the mat­ter will be re­solved.”

Ameen said the is­sue arose un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

She added, “The sit­u­a­tion with San Juan Laven­tille Cor­po­ra­tion arose be­cause their lease ex­pired in 2021. The min­is­ter of lo­cal gov­ern­ment at that time was Mr Kaz­im Ho­sein. The PNM did noth­ing to re­new the lease to en­sure that the cor­po­ra­tion could con­tin­ue to oc­cu­py the space. I have in­ter­vened on the di­rec­tive of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

De­spite claims of ill treat­ment from MTS to­wards the Cor­po­ra­tion, Ameen said the State en­ter­prise has been gra­cious to the Cor­po­ra­tion.

She is now as­sur­ing the work­ers that the mat­ter will be re­solved soon.

She said, “I want to give the work­ers of San Juan Laven­tille the as­sur­ance that we will work on it, whether they stay in the cur­rent space or they move to an­oth­er build­ing. It will be re­solved short­ly, and it will be in the best in­ter­est of the work­ers and the pub­lic as well, be­cause the pub­lic would fre­quent the build­ing there to ac­cess ser­vices from the cor­po­ra­tion.

“So, I don’t know where Ms Beck­les is get­ting her in­for­ma­tion if the chair­man is not com­mu­ni­cat­ing with her,  but my du­ty is to en­sure that the mat­ter is re­solved in the in­ter­est of the Cor­po­ra­tion and the pur­pos­es of San Juan Laven­tille, and we are do­ing that. We are fix­ing the is­sue that the PNM cre­at­ed. “We are ad­dress­ing that ne­glect, that sit­u­a­tion where they left that lease un­re­solved, and I am cer­tain that it will be fixed and every­one will be hap­py at the end of the process.”

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the MTS head of­fice and con­tact­ed MTS via tele­phone yes­ter­day, but up to press time re­ceived no re­sponse.