Ministry pays persons to do nothing on month-to-month contracts

Aug 16, 2020 News

Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Pauline Sukhai

The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (formerly known as Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs under the Coalition) has been paying temporary staff salaries with little evidence of work done. This was revealed by Minister Pauline Sukhai who was recently re-appointed to the post at the Amerindian Affairs Ministry.
During a virtual press conference held yesterday, the Minister told members of the media that since her return to office, she has met with a number of issues that raised her concerns.
According to Minister Sukhai, among the issues is the complement of additional staffers employed within the Ministry.
“We currently have over 144 staffers at the Ministry which represents an increase to when I was there five years ago. However, what is of major concern to me is their performance,” the Minister said.
She explained that several of the staffers were identified as temporary workers employed on a month-to-month contract.
“What we found is that they were being paid their full salaries but they are not fully deployed,” she added.
Sukhai later clarified that the staffers may not be able to work since they were not given the necessary tools to carry out their functions.
“For example, the Community Development Officers within the Ministry increased from 13 to 29 and most of them need a mobile or transportation to carry out their duties but they were not given any.”
Further, the Minister noted the Ministry had been no work plan in place for the year 2018- 2019.
“These are all deficiencies that must be addressed,” she said, while noting that some of the temporary will have to be relieved of their duties.
“Since there is no budget in place we will have to consider if we will re-engage some of them for different projects once the budget is worked out,” the Minister added.
The situation at the Amerindian Affairs Ministry is being highlighted one week after newly appointed Minister of Local Government and Regional Development; Nigel Dharamlall, revealed a similar occurrence at his Ministry.
Dharamlall told the press that when former Minister Ronald Bulkan sat at the helm, he expended over $800 million in salaries to 56 contract staffers, but there was little evidence found by the new administration to account for their work since 2015.
Dharamlall disclosed that in the Minister’s Secretariat of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, 23 staff were earning as much as, in total per month, $7.73M,”
Among those staffers, he said, were political appointees of the previous A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration.
The Minister pointed out that among them was one Special Ministerial Advisor on Local Government; Oscar Clarke, who was earning $418,674 per month; a non-taxable duty allowance of $25,000 per month and a telephone allowance of $15,000 per month.
Clarke is a veteran member of the People’s National Congress/ Reform, a major component of the Coalition, and a representative of APNU on the Georgetown City Council.

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