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Town Clerk demotes staff member not paid eight months after employment
Not only is 20-year-old Nnesha Hinds unpaid eight months after being employed at City Hall, but the young woman has now been demoted retroactive to the day she started working at the agency.
Acting Town Clerk
Carol Sooba
The Clerk II staff member attached to the Mayor’s quarters was employed by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) last July. She went through the agency’s hiring process and was handed an employment letter from the Personnel Department outlining her position and particulars.
However, Hinds was on Wednesday handed another employment letter, this time from the Office of the acting Town Clerk stating that she will now assume the lower position of Clerk I General retroactive to the date that she commenced employment.
The employment letter came one day after the acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba instructed the agency’s Personnel Officer to demote the young woman. It appears that Sooba took matters into her own hands after the Personnel Officer reportedly refused to demote Hinds because she was properly employed and possesses the necessary qualifications for the post.
Hinds was not being paid since according to information her employment file was being kept by Sooba who refused to give approval for her to be remunerated.
In the signed correspondence, Sooba instructed the young woman to assume the post of “Clerk I General” and it will be effective July 1, 2014. This means that even though Hinds commenced work as a Clerk II last year, she will only be paid as a Clerk I for that period.
The letter instructed further that Hinds will work for a probationary period of six months and a medical
Unpaid, demoted clerk Nnesha Hinds
examination will be performed on a subsequent date provided. The letter stated the woman’s salary and annual leave before highlighting the various terms of service termination.
The letter was copied to the Personnel Officer. Sooba’s action is likely to cause more unease in the already unstable relationship between the executive and the administration. This is because Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase –Green has already stated that Hinds has been advised not to take the salary of the lower position.
Chase-Green charged that Sooba is in no way authorized to hire or fire any staffer since it is the job of the Personnel Department with the blessing of the Full Council. Chase-Green argued that it is absurd that the Council’s procedures should not be followed in the employment of the staffer and apart from her not being paid for eight months, she is now demoted and will receive the salary of a Clerk I after performing in the capacity of a Clerk II staffer.
An obviously frustrated Chase-Green explained that Sooba continues to dictate the functioning of the Council; completely ignoring the protocols of the institution.
President of the Guyana Local Government Officers’ Union (GLGOU) Dale Beresford intervened in the matter. He said he would bring this matter and that of Communications Officer, Royston King, to the attention of the Labour Minister.
The Communications Officer’s salary was arbitrarily slashed in half by Sooba after he was hauled before the courts for fraud. King was charged when the Town Clerk supported by the Local Government Minister Norman Whitaker cried foul over a tax waiver approval letter he wrote to a charitable organization on behalf of the Council.
King’s charge came days after the Council filed a legal suit naming the Town Clerk and the Minister against a $27M tax waiver they granted to a well off businessman.
In Hinds’ matter, Beresford said that a labour officer made contact with Sooba but nothing was done.
The woman had tendered her resignation out of frustration, but returned to work when Mayor Hamilton Green encouraged her not to give up her salary so easily. When Kaieteur News made contact with the Town Clerk, she accused the Union President and media operatives of harassing Hinds and alleged that the young woman had come to her crying before hanging up her cellular phone.
Last December, two nurses, supported by their colleagues, protested outside City Hall after the Town Clerk also refused to pay them after five months on the job. The women were employed by the Council but Sooba refused to pay. They were employed in August last year, but were not paid until January after much public display.
Hinds has since sent a complaint to the Ombudsman.
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