The Herstelling/Little Diamond Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) has confirmed that the 13 workers who were unpaid for the Easter season received their payments some time ago.
When Guyana Times contacted the NDC on Thursday, a member of the Council explained that the fortnight payments were issued to the persons after their wait to be paid surpassed the Easter holiday.
The Little Diamond Herstelling NDC
The matter arose during the monthly Regional Committee meeting whereby the Vice Chairman of the RDC, Earl Lambert and Assistant Regional Executive Officer (AREO), Ramnarine Singh highlighted that the employees had not received payments which were due.
In light of this incident, it was reported that the Regional Chairman of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), Genevieve Allen had called for an investigation to be launched into the matter, which stemmed from the NDC Chairman, Madan Singh refusing to sign the vouchers in order for the workers to receive their monies.
“These persons have worked and by law, they are to be paid, paid not when the Chairman feels ready and happy to, but paid within the stipulated time frame of when salaries are due,” the RDC Chairman stated.
In recent times, several NDCs in Region Four were under investigation by the Council in respect to financial mismanagements.
The NDC Chairman of the Herstelling/Little Diamond NDC reportedly made a unilateral decision to increase his monthly stipend by 150 per cent, which was once $10,000. However, Singh waived all of the accusations as “misguided statements” in his defence. His stipend was increased from $10,000 to $25,000.
Meanwhile, a former employee of the Grove/Diamond NDC was allegedly involved in the disappearance of some $56 million that was reportedly missing. As such, an in depth investigation was called for by the Chairman of the NDC, Bharrat Narine, in which he requested that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Auditor General take up the responsibility of the investigation since the ground work was done by his Councillors and the Police have not been very helpful thus far.
Additionally, a few days ago, the spotlight was focused on the Enmore/Hope NDC when a fundraiser hosted by the Council was said to stage a loss although it was noted that a profit was made. This, according to the AREO, was due to allocation of the profit to the Council’s Chairman for payment for his contribution towards the event.
As such, this incident had raised eyebrows and the RDC Chairman had completed an investigation for which actions are likely to be taken by the Council.
