City nurses still not paid

Two nurses attached to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) are still to be paid since last August, although acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba yesterday told city councillors that she had already signed the approval for payments.

This was revealed at the City Council’s Statutory Meeting at City Hall.

Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase-Greene told the meeting that the administration department refuses to address the matter even after the Council agreed that the nurses should be paid with immediate effect.

The nurses, Sandra Hanover, 55 and Sharon Chase 48, according to Chase-Greene, play an important role in pre-and post-natal services to almost 500 mothers and to deny these individuals their pay was cruel.

In a back and forth between Chase-Greene and Sooba, the acting Town Clerk said she had already signed the approval for payments.

Recently, the Guyana Local Government Officers Union (GLGOU), which represents the workers, threatened industrial if demands for the nurses to be paid were not met. However, no such action has been taken.

Meanwhile, several councillors expressed their dissatisfaction at the meeting about deductions from their stipends when they missed meetings. They said a “ridiculous” amount of money would be deducted.

Sooba was asked at the last meeting to submit the formula that her department uses to deduct money, however, she is yet to do so.