JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Former chairman alleges illegal hiring at Siparia Borough Corp

by

591 days ago
20230712

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

For­mer chair­man of the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Di­nesh Sankers­ingh has raised con­cerns about al­leged il­le­gal hir­ing prac­tices.

At a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, he called on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi to ac­tive­ly ad­dress on­go­ing is­sues at the Cor­po­ra­tion, in­clud­ing the al­leged mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of $300,000 and lack of progress with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to that mat­ter. 

“I am yet to be in­ter­viewed by the po­lice and I am yet to get con­crete in­for­ma­tion as to the sta­tus of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion and if the mon­ey will be re­turned to the Cor­po­ra­tion,” he said.

Sankers­ingh said there is a need for ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the CEO, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, and Coun­cil as well as fair and eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources. 

“The CEO is not ful­fill­ing the work di­rect­ed by the Coun­cil. Sev­er­al de­ci­sions have been made to hire in­di­vid­u­als in the ab­sence of a ful­ly con­sti­tut­ed Coun­cil,” he said.

San­keer­ingh list­ed failed equip­ment, in­ad­e­quate sup­plies ham­per­ing work progress, and an over­all break­down in com­mu­ni­ca­tion as the main is­sues af­fect­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion.

Op­po­si­tion MP Khadi­jah Ameen asked about the source of fund­ing for on­go­ing works at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion al­though the Coun­cil is dis­solved and urged Al-Rawi to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and pre­vent CEOs from act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly with­out Coun­cil in­put.

On the is­sue of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, Ameen said she is dis­sat­is­fied with the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the min­is­ter. 

“We are call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment to main­tain ac­count­abil­i­ty where the CEO is con­cerned be­cause, in the ab­sence of a sit­ting Coun­cil, we can­not have the CEOs be­com­ing a law un­to them­selves and do­ing things that do not have the in­put of the Coun­cil,” she said. 

“Where fund­ing and de­vel­op­ment is con­cerned, the Gov­ern­ment has been on the plat­form say­ing they have made Siparia a bor­ough but the min­is­ter has not com­mu­ni­cat­ed a way for­ward as it re­lates to lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form be­cause noth­ing is in place in any Cor­po­ra­tion for re­form,” she added.

Ameen said un­der the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion there is no clear roadmap for re­form but small­er con­trac­tors will be dis­ad­van­taged as larg­er con­trac­tors with bet­ter re­sources can dom­i­nate un­der the new arrange­ment. 

For­mer coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo spoke about op­er­a­tional chal­lenges at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion. He point­ed to heaps of ma­te­r­i­al or­dered by coun­cil­lors that had been left un­used due to a break­down of equip­ment and ve­hi­cles.

“This ma­te­r­i­al has been lan­guish­ing for three months now while peo­ple have been suf­fer­ing from bad roads through­out the re­gion. We have no trans­porta­tion be­cause five out of six trucks are down and on­ly one back­hoe is op­er­a­tional,” he said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored