Dear Editor,

The New Guyana Marketing Manager, Nizam Hassan recently announced to staff that they are not entitled to the nine percent increase given by the government.

When the manager was asked why he replied that the Minister of Agriculture and Chairman of the board stated that the building needs restructuring and the 9% given by government will be used to do the work. The Guyana Marketing Corporation collected some 15 million for the restructuring of the building early this year.

Mr Hassan stated that staff were given an increase some time in July which is not true.

Yours faithfully,

Roy Devonish

Editor’s note

We sent a copy of this letter to Mr Nizam Hassan, General Manager of Guyana Marketing Corporation for any comments he may wish to make and received the following response:

“Thank you for providing me the opportunity to respond to Roy Devonish’s letter.

Prior to the granting of the 9 per cent increase in public servants’ salaries by government the Board of Directors of the Guyana Marketing Corporation approved salary increases for all members of staff, ranging from 9 to 65 per cent. This became effective from July 2007. It was explained that this increase would be in lieu of any increase to be announced subsequently.

This move followed an employment review and restructuring exercise which examined salary scale and designation of all employees. This is in keeping with management’s efforts to provide the best possible package, and terms and conditions of employment consistent with GMC’s renewed role and the resulting heightened performance requirement from staff, in order to execute that role.

The restructured salary scale, as stated above, resulted in significant increases which surpasses the 9 per cent granted to public servants, and which the Union representing GMC’s employees is full cognizant of. Please be advised that the GMC is a semi-autonomous agency.”