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GGMC to rent Regent Street building
More worries seem to be brewing for the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) as the agency is now forced to rent another location to ease staff congestion at its Brickdam Head Office. Kaieteur News was told that agency officials are seeking to pay a $1M rental fee for a new building located at the corner of Light and Regent Streets.
This however, is despite recently constructing a new building in the Brickdam compound which has since been taken over by a handful of staffers from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Management is again furious over another inconvenience and the unnecessary expense that must be incurred.
Sources say that the agency has located the former Co- op Complex on Regent Street, which is now owned by a private concern, to house some of its staff.
Some GGMC staffers will soon be making the move to the new location.
The Regent Street location which will soon house some GGMC staffers
It was explained that most of those who will be housed at the Regent Street building are field workers. Provision had to be made for the influx of field staff, needed for additional coverage of interior locations.
The Regent Street move may however pose a difficulty for the monitoring and management of staffers who will now be decentralized due to the space constraints.
GGMC already has a $600M tab to deal with for the completion of the High and Princes Street building which they will possibly occupy, by early next year.
Management was livid when Cabinet ordered the agency to spend more than $100M to buy the defective High Street building in February last. That location was originally slated for the Labour and Human Services Ministry, but was left unoccupied for a prolonged period of time.
Prior to the order, GGMC had spent millions of dollars to construct the new three story building at its head office compound on Brickdam.
It is now home to the Natural Resources Ministry and some 25 staffers. But the takeover was deemed unnecessary since according to a GGMC source, the location is more than what the Ministry requires.
Even top officials of the government had the same opinion when arguments erupted over the takeover of the GGMC building.
Kaieteur News was told that the Natural Resources Ministry is not paying a rental for the GGMC building and it is apparent that the utilities bill will be the responsibility of the Geology and Mines Commission.
This publication was further told that although the move to Regent Street is unwanted, it is necessary since overcrowding and cramped conditions have long been an issue at GGMC which has an operating capacity of 300-plus staffers.
The GGMC will however have to add their rental payments to their list of things to do as their proposed new home at the High and Princes Street building is far from ready.
GGMC continues to feel imposed upon by the Natural Resources Ministry. While the agency should be able to manage its own affairs under the constitution, staffers argued that the Ministry had gradually been forcing itself into GGMC business. “The GGMC is an Agency on its own, while the Ministry is only a policy maker,” they stated.
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