The Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region Six has been notified that National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) machinery has been used for private work in the region and Regional Executive Officer (REO) Kim Williams-Stephen has said that the operators were cautioned as a result.
PPP/C Regional Councillor Zamal Hussain last Thursday told a statutory meeting of the RDC that he is in possession of evidence that NDIA’s small machine, located on the East Bank Berbice, was carrying out private work for persons. “I have evidence that NDIA small machine is doing private work on people personal property, an NDIA machine with the number 86,” he said.
Hussain noted that he had raised the issue at a previous statutory meeting but was told he needed proof to support his claims. “I am telling you now the machine is being used to do private jobs,” he said. “I was challenged for evidence and I went personally and I got the evidence,” he said.
Stabroek News was told that several other NDIA machines have also been used to carry out private works for persons in the region.
Regional Chairman David Armogan advised Hussain to furnish Williams-Stephen with the information so that “she could take some action. “The policy of the government is that there will be no private work… with the use of government machines, nobody has the authority to do that,” Armogan stressed.
However, Williams-Stephen then interjected and explained that a meeting was held in her office in relation to operators carrying out work on private lands. “They were cautioned… that no operator should do work on private land,” she noted.
She said the regional administration has since asked to see copies of the operators’ contracts, since while the machines may be assigned to the region, the operators themselves are not “and so we had a meeting… to iron out how we are going to deal with this issue but unless we have the contractual arrangements that were made, unless we know who are the persons the operators should respond to, the operators fall under NDIA, so we have to iron those sorts of issues”.
While further stressing that the operators were cautioned, Williams-Stephen added that it is unclear who is responsible to discipline them.
