EMPLOYEES
at a municipal corporation in Central Trinidad are asking how a
daily-paid checker and his daughter could be allowed to get rich
at the expense of the State.
The father-daughter team (names called) both work on a special project
which other officers at the corporation say was set up simply to
allow highly-favoured individuals to skim the fat off the corporation’s
coffers.
Eyebrows and questions were raised when minutes for the corporation’s
statutory meeting for May, revealed that the checker received allowances
that exceeded his fortnightly salary.
The checker, whose basic salary stands at $1,600 per fortnight,
collected more than $3,000 for the first fortnight in May.
The extra money represents the checker’s personal allowances
only, and purports to cover expenses such as overtime, mobile telephone
allowance and travelling. It does not include other allowances such
as an “office allowance” recorded in the minutes as
payable to the checker “and others,” but does not say
exactly how much went to the checker, or who the “others”
were.
Even more alarming was a “recommendation arising out of a
meeting of the corporation’s finance committee” that
the checker’s daughter be paid $5,000 for “services”
such as typing and copying documents for the programme.
TnT Mirror was told that the minutes of the meeting of the finance
committee, which was held earlier in the month, make no mention
of any payment due to anyone for typing or photocopying.
Clerical staff at the corporation also claim that the checker’s
daughter did no typing or photocopying: “She came and humbly
asked staff members to type and photocopy documents for her, now
she wants to charge the corporation for those same services that
she didn’t provide,” declared one irate employee.
The employee also alleges that the checker is deliberately delaying
the project: “He leaving work to pile up to delay the project
for as long as possible,” the female employee stated.
Meanwhile, accountability at the corporation has become a thing
of the past as the gravy train con-tinues to run. |
