Chairman of the Linden IMC Orrin Gordon is disappointed that since the current administration has been elected to office, the Linden municipality has not been able to discuss with the Ministry of Communities matters that are directly related to the town.
“It looks like the road is going to be a hard road,” he said during the statutory meeting of the Linden Town Council. “I’m making it clear to you. It’s not going to be easy. If you want anything come to Linden, you have to fight for it. You’re not sitting down and getting it easily. You got to work and you got to fight for it.”
The Chairman of the Linden IMC was expressing disappointment at what he perceived as the slow pace with which the newly elected government is moving to address certain critical issues that are affecting Linden. “After all these months have passed [there has been] no direct discussion on Linden … although we have written asking them,” Gordon lamented.
The reopening of the Kara Kara Toll Booth should have been one of the first things that should have happened for Linden under this new government, Gordon said, “to send a clear message that the closure of the booth was an injustice done to the community. End of story. There should be no discussion on that. We’re sitting down waiting until now. Initially, we had expectations that these things would have been cleared just like that. Well, that is not so.”
PNC/R Councillor Hugh Stephens suggested that the members of the Linden IMC should meet with the region’s parliamentarians to discuss their concerns in the hope that the MPs would raise the issues in Parliament. He said if the minister is not doing his work, “We should let others know that he is not fitting in right. He got to put himself in order, or he’s got to dress down.”
PPP/C Councillor Vanburn Brown said that he did not want to comment much on the issue but he has noticed that since in the 70s, there’s a problem with Linden and it appears to him that the policy makers in Georgetown have a grudge against Linden.
But PPP/C Councillor, Eon Hall, sarcastically stated that prior to the May 11 regional and general elections, he had listened to the PNC/R councillors Gordon Callendar and Charles Sampson, who were optimistic that everything that the municipality needed would have been granted by the APNU+AFC Alliance government when it won the elections. Hall said now that the alliance has won, he believes the worst is yet to come.
Councillor Sampson said only a few days earlier he discovered that all employees of the Linden Municipality receive the probationary rate of pay for their respective jobs. Consequently, they are all entitled to a five per cent pay increase. He also pointed out that the council has not been giving internal increases, which means that an employee, who has worked for ten years in a particular job gets the same rate of pay as someone, who has worked for less than a year doing a similar job. Stressing that he was not talking about the government’s minimum wage, Sampson said he was talking about the internal wage structure of the municipality and he recommended that the five per cent increase be implemented immediately for all employees of the Linden Town Council.
Surprise
Stating that the Kara Kara Toll Point was shut down by the previous government because the by-law was not gazetted, Sampson said he is surprised that the Ministry of Communities has not moved to reopen that revenue collecting facility. According to him, the Linden Municipality has been holding its workers and the National Insurance Scheme to ransom. He also referred to other agencies that it owes.
Sampson said the recommendation to increase the workers’ pay by five per cent would increase the need for the municipality to increase its revenue collection, particularly reopening of the Kara Kara Toll Point and expected increased revenue from the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge under a new operating regime.
Explaining that a five per cent increase for the town council’s employees would fall below the government’s minimum wage guideline of $50,000, Sampson implored the rest of the council to vote on three recommendations:
(1) Increase in councillors’ stipend to at least $25,000 per month;
(2) Duty-free concessions for councillors;
(3) Five per cent increase for the Linden Town Council workers.
