Chairman claims: Sabotage at Siparia Regional Corporation

Chairman of the Siparia Regional Corporation Leo Doodnath has expressed fears that sabotage might be taking place at the Corporation. According to Doodnath: “With 19 vehicles unusable at the same time, it could be a case that certain personnel at the Corporation are trying to make this administration look bad.” Doodnath was speaking at last Thursday’s statutory meeting of the Corporation. He stated that his own personal investigations revealed that certain key vehicles and equipment were nonfunctional for reasons he deemed as “lame and petty.”

An irritated Doodnath, who is also a top cricket administrator, stated: “Imagine this is the start of the cricket season. We have an obligation to prepare grounds all over the region, and all three of our cutters are down. And for what? A blade in one instance, bearings in another, and brakes pad in another. Then there is the wheel tractor—down because of smooth tyres. “We have a truck to pull a ‘lowboy’ to transport the rollers, and guess what? That down too—no spring. And that’s not all. We have three backhoes—none working. What utter slackness! This is gross negligence on somebody’s part!"

Doodnath, a past president of the Penal/Debe Chamber of Commerce, was adamant that something like this could never happen in the private sector. “It’s against economical principles to have equipment valued millions of dollars, and operators of these equipment as well, lying idle,” he bemoaned. “If given a chance, I can have all of these vehicles operational in 24 hours,” Doodnath quipped. And what hurts, Doodnath added, is that burgesses hold their elected representatives responsible, and rightly so, when they are denied basic services. Doodnath has asked that the various sections—the mechanical garage, the transport dispatcher, the roads officers, the procurement personnel, the accounts department—to come together to rectify the problem.