KEL­LY ANN LEMESSY

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Mem­bers of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion have now been paid af­ter con­cerns were raised over salary de­lays.

Chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that all coun­cil­lors and al­der­men were paid for Ju­ly and Au­gust.

“I just want to con­firm that the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion mem­bers of coun­cil don't have any pay is­sue. We were paid the Ju­ly month, we were paid Au­gust month, and we don't have any pay is­sue at our cor­po­ra­tion,” Co­zi­er said.

Last month, PNM al­der­man Elitha Bessor said sev­en coun­cil­lors and four al­der­men had gone un­paid for the month of Ju­ly and crit­i­cised the lack of po­lit­i­cal out­cry, warn­ing of fi­nan­cial strain. She, too, con­firmed she re­ceived her salary but de­clined to com­ment fur­ther.

Af­ter the is­sue was raised, both the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Fi­nance ini­ti­at­ed a vire­ment (or bud­getary trans­fer), to cov­er salaries by mov­ing funds from Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) projects to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment, Khadi­jah Ameen MP, con­firmed the pa­per­work had been signed, and funds were se­cured for the rest of the fi­nan­cial year.