Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Some lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lors are warn­ing that chron­ic de­lays in the re­lease of gov­ern­ment funds are leav­ing work­ers, coun­cil­lors and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions un­der mount­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sure—with some coun­cil­lors re­port­ed­ly fac­ing evic­tion from their of­fices.

Diego Mar­tin May­or Akeilah Glas­gow said re­cent in­creas­es in coun­cil­lors’ al­lowances, rent ceil­ings and sec­re­tar­i­al sup­port have not been matched by cor­re­spond­ing dis­burse­ments to cor­po­ra­tions.

“You can­not in­crease al­lowances on pa­per and then not send the mon­ey to cov­er it,” Glas­gow said. “Right now, coun­cil­lors are get­ting let­ters from land­lords be­cause the rent has not been paid. That is un­ac­cept­able.”

She not­ed that while coun­cil­lors’ rent ceil­ings were raised from $2,000 to $3,500, along with in­creas­es in in­ci­den­tals and sec­re­tar­i­al sup­port, the funds be­ing re­leased have not re­flect­ed those ad­just­ments.

“The al­lo­ca­tions may be in the bud­get, but what is be­ing re­leased is an­oth­er sto­ry. Mon­ey al­lo­cat­ed is not nec­es­sar­i­ly mon­ey re­ceived,” she added.

Glas­gow al­so high­light­ed con­cerns af­fect­ing work­ers. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 220 in­di­vid­u­als hired un­der a Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment spe­cial project in De­cem­ber are as­signed to cor­po­ra­tions but paid di­rect­ly by the Min­istry. Al­though they be­gan work on De­cem­ber 15, they have re­port­ed­ly re­ceived on­ly two fort­night­ly pay­ments.

“These are peo­ple who have to trav­el, bring their own tools and pro­tec­tive equip­ment, and they are not be­ing paid on time,” she said. “They are un­der re­al pres­sure.”

She added that cor­po­ra­tion-em­ployed dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers are al­so be­ing af­fect­ed, with some cor­po­ra­tions forced to ad­vance funds from oth­er bud­get votes to meet pay­roll oblig­a­tions while await­ing Min­istry re­leas­es.

Sim­i­lar con­cerns were raised by Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Austin, who said his cor­po­ra­tion fre­quent­ly re­ceives salary re­leas­es late.

“We got the cheque on Fri­day af­ter Car­ni­val, when salaries were due on the Tues­day and Wednes­day be­fore Car­ni­val. That’s a week and two days late,” Austin said. “We are find­ing ways to pay, mov­ing mon­ey around, but oth­er cor­po­ra­tions don’t have that op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

He warned that pro­longed de­lays could trig­ger un­rest among work­ers.

“Imag­ine work­ers hav­ing to wait to pay their rent, loans and oth­er oblig­a­tions. This is crazy. The pe­ri­od of wait­ing for these cheques is get­ting longer and longer,” he said.

Austin said the de­lays ex­tend be­yond salaries to oth­er pro­grammes, in­clud­ing the up­keep ini­tia­tive and garbage col­lec­tion ser­vices.

“Even our scav­eng­ing ser­vices were cut by $4 mil­lion,” he said. “We now have to study what we can fea­si­bly man­age with lim­it­ed re­sources while still ser­vic­ing main roads and schools.”

He al­so point­ed to com­plaints from work­ers in­volved in Car­ni­val clean-up and up­keep pro­grammes.

“I’ve spo­ken to work­ers in Ari­ma and the Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co re­gion. They tell me fort­nights are pass­ing and they are still wait­ing for mon­ey. Pay­ments are de­layed month af­ter month,” he said.

Austin fur­ther crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as con­flict­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­volv­ing con­trac­tors and the Min­istry.

“Con­trac­tors are quar­relling, writ­ing to the Min­istry, get­ting con­flict­ing re­ports, and leav­ing us to grap­ple with pay­ments. It’s a very tick­lish sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that post-elec­tion bud­get re­duc­tions have com­pound­ed the prob­lem.

“We’re com­ing in­to a bud­get and see­ing that we are cut by $4 mil­lion. We still have to main­tain ser­vices in ar­eas un­der our ju­ris­dic­tion, but we’re stretched thin,” he said.

Glas­gow called for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion and greater ac­count­abil­i­ty in the re­lease of funds.

“The pub­lic needs to look not just at what is bud­get­ed, but what is ac­tu­al­ly re­leased. Work­ers, coun­cil­lors and com­mu­ni­ties should not have to suf­fer be­cause of de­lays or dis­par­i­ties in the re­lease of funds,” she said.

Austin was blunt in his as­sess­ment: “This can­not con­tin­ue. Wait­ing for salaries, late pay­ments for pro­grammes, and in­suf­fi­cient fund­ing is not sus­tain­able. Lo­cal gov­ern­ment is crum­bling, and it’s time this is­sue is ad­dressed.”

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), Christo­pher Streete, con­firmed re­ceiv­ing com­plaints about de­layed salary pay­ments at cer­tain cor­po­ra­tions, in­clud­ing Siparia and the San Juan–Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

“I did re­ceive com­plaints from work­ers whose wages were not paid on the as­signed pay date,” Streete said.

He in­di­cat­ed that the is­sue was re­solved fol­low­ing in­ter­ven­tion by the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, and work­ers were sub­se­quent­ly paid.

“My un­der­stand­ing is that the Min­is­ter did in­ter­vene and work­ers were paid. I don’t know what the rea­son was. If it was a ques­tion of re­leas­es, I have no idea,” Streete said, adding that the union con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly.

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen said the Min­istry “will con­tin­ue to work with all mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to prop­er­ly plan and man­age their af­fairs in a man­ner that leads to im­proved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and en­hanced ser­vices to cit­i­zens.”