Dear Editor,
Over the last few weeks, the Public Relations Division has been bombarded with questions from irate citizens about the troubling issue of payment for Ms Nnesha Hinds, Clerk II attached to office of the Mayor of Georgetown. We now state the following:
On July 1, 2014, Ms Hinds was properly employed by the Mayor and City Council at the position of Clerk II, attached to the Office of the Mayor in place of Ms Lakish, who resigned. It was a decision of the full council. The Mayor wrote saying that the person had assumed working within the office on August 1, 2014 and the Personnel Officer gave the individual a letter of appointment effective August 1, 2014. However, the Town Clerk ag, had subsequently written on the report saying that she has not caused anyone to be employed, hence she was not endorsing any such employment.
At almost every statutory meeting, during the last five months of 2014, the council repeatedly raised its concerns about the treatment of this employee by the administration. There was a lot of twaddle from the administration but no real effort was made to pay Ms Hinds. All that time, the young woman remained on the job, doing her assignments in the office of the Mayor.
Again, at the beginning of 2015, the Mayor and other councillors raised the issue about payment for Ms Hinds. Letters were written to the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Local Government and the Office of the Ombudsman. There was and still is no movement to pay the clerk.
Then on March 9, 2015, for some inexplicable reason, the acting Town Clerk Ms Carol Sooba, by letter, attempted to instruct the Personnel Officer to change Ms Hinds’ position from Clerk II to Clerk I. After careful consideration of the matter the Personnel Officer in her reply advised Ms Sooba that such an instruction, to wit, to withdraw the appointment letter to Ms Hinds, and to issue her with another, changing her designation, after eight months of service to council was totally irregular, unprofessional and a breach of the normal employment procedure of the Mayor and City Council. The Personnel Officer informed Ms Sooba that she could not comply with such an instruction. Prior to that, the Personnel Officer had already dispatched Ms Hinds’ file to the City Treasurer to facilitate prompt payment of the her salary; the City Treasurer did not act.
Unable to secure the cooperation of the relevant officers to violate certain ethical principles, on March 11, 2015, Ms Sooba arbitrarily wrote a letter to Ms Hinds, which essentially stated that she was appointing Ms Hinds to the position of Clerk 1 General, Mayor’s Office.
So, Ms Hinds, who was served with her employment letter in July of 2014 as a Clerk II, by the Personnel Officer, received another letter, on March 2015 (nine months after being on the job) from the acting Town Clerk, which indicated that she was employed at the position of Clerk I, effective July 1, 2014. How confusing and absurd. One can reasonably argue that it is the highest level of organisational incompetence.
However, we wish to make two important points:
First, no officer of the council including the Town Clerk has the authority or right to change, adjust or ignore decisions of council. The elected council, which is made up of thirty councillors including the Mayor, is the policy-making body; administration, which comprises officers, is obliged to implement all decisions of the council. The law is very clear on this matter at Section 77. (2).
Therefore, Ms Sooba has once again over-stepped her bounds; she does not have the authority to change, in any way, the position, job description and specification of any employee of the Mayor and City Council. Her action is unethical and illegal.
Second, with respect to employment as it is with all other aspects of its operation, the municipality is guided by certain principles, protocols and procedures. The council does not guess its work; there are clear standards for its different departments and sections.
The Personnel Division, which is the agency with responsibility to manage the council’s human resources, relied on those standards to recruit and employ Ms Nnesha Hinds. There is nothing wrong with her employment.
Clearly then, when Ms Sooba sent another letter to Ms Hinds changing her position she was, in fact, impinging on the work of the Personnel Officer. This is fuelling a great deal of confusion and other related problems which are affecting the ability of the council to provide municipal services to citizens in an efficient manner. Ms Sooba cannot just override the authority and duties of heads and sectional heads and do whatever she pleases, otherwise, there would be a total collapse of all the systems of the council.
Finally, the fact that after nine months, Ms Hinds, a young woman, who has chosen the City Council as her first place of employment, has not received one cent from the council shows a certain crude, heartless and insensitive action on the part of administration. Workers are people with emotions and responsibilities, not inanimate objects. Furthermore, corporate stewardship stipulates that we, at the Georgetown municipality, create a work environment that is characterized by a culture of caring, free from fear, suspicion, and organisational injustice. Otherwise, some will benefit from the opportunities of the organisation while others would be left to languish in despair and dissatisfaction.
Another month is whizzing by and Ms Hinds remains faithfully on the job, of course, empty- handed. When will this injustice come to an end?
Yours faithfully,
Royston King
Mayor and City Council
