RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More than a year af­ter she took of­fice, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Ann Ho­sein has came un­der fire from PNM and UNC coun­cil­lors who have ac­cused her of “hid­ing per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion, fail­ing to fill tech­ni­cal va­can­cies, tak­ing too long to award con­tracts and fail­ing to re­pair dys­func­tion­al equip­ment.”

At the Cor­po­ra­tion’s month­ly statu­to­ry meet­ing on Thurs­day, coun­cil­lor for Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique, Dood­nath Mayrhoo asked Ho­sein to ex­plain why the mid-year re­view re­port was not giv­en to the Coun­cil be­fore it was sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment on March 17.

“How can you pre­pare a midyear re­port ask­ing for $19, 350,143 mil­lion and not in­form the coun­cil? This doc­u­ment is sup­posed to be rat­i­fied by the coun­cil and got­ten coun­cil ap­proval be­fore it was sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry,” he said.

Mayrhoo al­so said the CEO failed to re­fur­bish ma­chin­ery.

“We have one back­hoe work­ing in this Cor­po­ra­tion out of six. One! The ex­ca­va­tor has been down since De­cem­ber last year but our CEO pur­sues the cut­ter and wack­er al­lowance to take away $10 from fe­male labour­ers who have been work­ing for us,” Mayrhoo added.

He ex­plained that the al­lowance was giv­en to work­ers to pur­chase fu­el and string fol­low­ing a se­ries of in­creas­es in the price of fu­el. Mayrhoo said the CEO need­ed to get her pri­or­i­ties right and­com­plained that even though ten­ders were in­vit­ed more than a month ago, it is un­cer­tain whether any con­tracts were is­sued.

“The con­trac­tors told me they had on­ly two days to sub­mit ten­ders in the box and it is my un­der­stand­ing that it was opened so quick­ly that the Coun­cil didn’t know when it was open­ing. Yet that is more than a month and we do not know whether the con­trac­tors were award­ed,” he said.

Mayrhoo al­so asked about the num­ber of peo­ple who had been em­ployed over the past year.

Coun­cil­lor for Siparia West/Fyz­abad Ja­son Mo­hammed said burgess­es ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing but there was no equip­ment to as­sist them as the ex­ca­va­tor is down. In the Los Iros/Erin dis­trict, flood­ing al­so oc­curred and the coun­cil­lor re­quest­ed a ve­hi­cle but did not get any as­sis­tance.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said ac­cord­ing to the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion Act, the CEO is re­spon­si­ble for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of all de­part­ment heads.

“Every­thing has to go through her. We do not know why there is an is­sue with the wack­er and blow­er al­lowance and why she wants to stop it. She sent a let­ter from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer stat­ing that she wants clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the wack­er al­lowance and blow­er al­lowance. This al­lowance was passed af­ter the in­crease of the gas price from $10 to $25,” Teelucks­ingh said.M

Ho­sein said the er­ror of not bring­ing the mid-year re­view to the coun­cil was not her do­ing.

“It may have been an over­sight on the part of the Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer that she did not bring it to Coun­cil be­fore sub­mis­sion. When doc­u­ments are signed off by the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, it is oner­ous on chief of­fi­cers and the heads of de­part­ment to bring it to the at­ten­tion of the Coun­cil,” she said.

On the is­sue of the brush cut­ter al­lowance, Ho­sein said a mo­tion was moved by the Coun­cil on the 34th Fi­nance Plan­ning and Al­lo­ca­tions meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 20 seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the CPO. She al­so said it was not true that ten­ders bids were opened quick­ly.

“Ten­ders were ad­ver­tised for 14 days and it was sent to coun­cil mem­bers through the Sec­re­tary’s of­fice,” she said

Ho­sein de­nied that cer­tain con­trac­tors were giv­en spe­cial pref­er­ence not­ing that the Pro­cure­ment Act has been pro­claimed and the Coun­cil should be cau­tious when mak­ing state­ments that are not true.

She said it was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment to en­sure that road-build­ing ma­te­ri­als are re­ceived not­ing: “ When the chief of­fi­cers don’t per­form, di­rect your ques­tions to them.”

A source said the coun­cil­lors are prepar­ing a vote of no con­fi­dence against the CEO.