Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) Chairman on Thursday noted that he was concerned about the disappearance of payment contracts, as well as the untimely payments made by the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) to persons for services.
He shed light on the issues as the Council hosted its first statutory meeting of 2019 at its office in Linden. According to the Regional Chairman, payment contracts are being misplaced at the office which has led to the duplication of the contracts and payments.
Addressing Councillors on numerous challenges faced by the Council, Morian pointed to the issues, noting that these should be corrected in 2019.
“Another area that is troubling us in the Council is the area of contracts… contracts keep disappearing,” the Regional Chairman noted.
He also pointed to instances where he would have to redo contracts for payments at least twice, only for it to be misplaced again. More specifically, Morian highlighted one instance where one contract was prepared three times and two separate payments for the amount was issued.
“I discovered, two payments come… Two payments come to the person… Somehow, we ain’t getting it right… Something ain’t right in the contracts area… we’re missing too many contracts…” he stressed. As such, Morian asked that the Regional Executive Officer (REO) and Deputy REO look into the area of contracts.
“Payments got another issue… We got problems with payments… When you equate us with other regions, this region lagging behind in terms of the time we take to pay people… people, they ain’t conscious that these people work for this money and they want their payment,” Morian continued.
In this regard, he said he spoke with Finance Minister Winston Jordan and requested training for staff and for diagnostics to be carried out to see where strengthening is needed.
“I had a talk with the Minister of Finance and he asked me to put it in writing and I did put it in writing that I’m very dissatisfied that we ain’t getting it right where payments are concerned. People coming and row… and they got some people ain’t want supply things to us anymore because of the whole issue of payments taking too long. Now we got to correct that in 2019,” he stated.
The REO Orrin Gordon said another contributing factor is the timely release of funds from the Central Ministry but noted that regardless, the system has to come up to scratch.
“So while sometimes the document is downstairs (at the office) we are waiting on the releases to come… but that does not negate the fact… we need to ensure the payments are made faster,” he said.
