Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen has giv­en an as­sur­ance all month­ly-paid Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees af­fect­ed by a re­cent salary de­lay will re­ceive their wages, fol­low­ing swift in­ter­ven­tion by her min­istry and the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Ameen said the de­lay was the re­sult of an ad­min­is­tra­tive holdup with­in the pub­lic ser­vice—not a fund­ing is­sue.

“This mat­ter was brought to the at­ten­tion of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and my­self, and was prompt­ly re­solved through our in­ter­ven­tion,” she said.

“While the pay­ment of salaries is an ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tion, I un­der­stand the hard­ship and frus­tra­tion caused by the de­lay. I wish to as­sure all af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees that the is­sue has been ad­dressed.”

Ameen said her min­istry is work­ing close­ly with the Min­istry of Fi­nance to process all out­stand­ing pay­ments and is mon­i­tor­ing in­ter­nal sys­tems to pre­vent a re­cur­rence.

“Rest as­sured, every­one will re­ceive their salaries,” she said, thank­ing work­ers for their pa­tience and reaf­firm­ing her com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing pub­lic ser­vants are treat­ed with re­spect and con­sis­ten­cy.

Ear­li­er in the day, Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste said the de­lay was due to what he de­scribed as an “in­ad­ver­tent” or “ad­min­is­tra­tive blun­der.”

“It was lit­er­al­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tive foul-up. That has been ad­dressed, and the work­ers will re­ceive their pay,” Bap­tiste said.

He em­pha­sised that the is­sue was not re­lat­ed to a short­age of funds.

“There is no is­sue with the avail­abil­i­ty of funds,” he said, ex­plain­ing the de­lay was caused by a re­quired doc­u­ment not be­ing signed in time.

Bap­tiste al­so not­ed that banks were asked to by­pass any hold­ing pe­ri­ods to speed up pay­ments.

The de­lay af­fect­ed month­ly-paid em­ploy­ees at­tached to the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, as well as the Min­istries of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture. How­ev­er, the ex­act num­ber of af­fect­ed work­ers has not been dis­closed.

De­spite the dis­rup­tion, some mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions re­port­ed that salary pay­ments were made on time.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said: “I have been ad­vised by the city trea­sur­er that all em­ploy­ees have been paid.”

Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed al­so con­firmed his cor­po­ra­tion’s staff were not af­fect­ed.

The de­lay sparked anx­i­ety among pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those with end-of-month fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions such as rent, loan pay­ments, and util­i­ty bills.

Ef­forts to con­tact Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.