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Senior GGMC official accused of mistreating, victimising staffers
– 25 sign petition calling for probe
Kaieteur News – At least 25 staffers of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) have signed a petition for a senior official to be investigated for allegedly mistreating and victimising them.
The Guyana Geology and Mines Commission.
Kaieteur News has received a copy of the signed petition that was reportedly submitted to GGMC’s Commissioner, Newell Dennison, on February 8, 2022. Copies of the document were also sent to the Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat and Chief Labour Officer, Dhaneshwar Deonarine.
The Senior GGMC official is being accused of making the lives of his staffers “a living hell” if they refuse to dance to his tunes.
Some of the affected workers visited this newspaper to voice their concerns in this regard. Work life at GGMC, they said, was always good in the past but since they got a new boss in 2018, everything changed.
According to the petition, when he became their boss in 2018, he began reshuffling the department he was placed in charge of and started to break some rules. No one questioned the reshuffling but when the workers saw him breaking some rules, they objected but they never expected that they would have to pay a heavy price for challenging him.
One worker told this newspaper, “He started to break the chain of command, although he is the boss of the department, we are working in sub-departments with their respective heads, who are in charge of different GGMC functions, but when he came, he changed all of this and wanted to be in control of everything; everything must pass through him before any approval is granted.”
At first, related the workers, they thought that this move was fuelled by his autocratic leadership style but as it turned out he had a different agenda.
That agenda, they alleged would allow him to bend the rules for his own benefits.
“He would instruct staff to strangle miners with pending court matters so that they can agree to a handsome settlement,” alleged one of the workers.
They also accused him of instructing his staffers to use their powers to seize minerals in cases where this is not required. Although some would follow the instructions, there are others who would oppose the alleged wrongdoings and challenge his authority.
The challengers would be the ones who would feel the brunt of his victimisation. One way of pulling staffers in line to do his bidding, alleged the GGMC employees, is to not sign off their advance bills for field work.
They explained that if they have to travel to an interior location for work duties, GGMC would give them money (an advance). This money is to take care of their basic needs while out in the field.
After completing their duties, they will then submit bills for what they spent and field reports for him to sign. If he refuses to sign off on their bills, then GGMC will withhold their salaries.
The workers claimed that once they are not in agreement with the senior official, he would use his power to victimise them. “He would not sign bills for months and for that period staff would have to stay without pay,” said one of the workers.
Complaints would be lodged with his superiors, said the workers, but nothing would be done. Somehow, they said, he would find out about the complaints against him and he would verbally abuse them.
“He is not working with the Human Resource department or does not have the power to suspend you like the HR department but he would discipline you right on the spot. He made a senior staff cry and another resigned,” complained the workers.
The staff who resigned, they continued, is still being victimised by the senior official because he is refusing to approve her gratuity benefits. To substantiate this claim, this newspaper was shown a letter that was written by the staff pleading for GGMC to pay her the gratuity benefits.
Once an investigation is launched and the senior official is found guilty of mistreating them, the workers are hopeful that he will be removed from his post or even fired.
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