Rhon­dor Dowlat

The Ari­ma Dis­trict Of­fice was closed to the pub­lic last week, caus­ing scores of cit­i­zens want­i­ng to con­duct busi­ness to ei­ther go as far as the Tu­na­puna or San­gre Grande of­fices.

Whilst the rea­son for the lat­est clo­sure wasn’t dis­closed to the pub­lic or to staff, it is be­ing spec­u­lat­ed that it is be­cause of health and safe­ty is­sues be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced since 2014.

No­tices of its clo­sure were on­ly erect­ed on its glass doors on Fri­day morn­ing, where of­fi­cials al­so pad­locked the bur­glar-proofed gates to the com­pound. The no­tice read: “The Ari­ma Dis­trict Of­fice will be closed un­til fur­ther no­tice…By Or­der of Man­age­ment…En­quiries can be made at the Tu­na­puna Dis­trict Of­fice or San­gre Grande Dis­trict Of­fice…We apol­o­gise for any in­con­ve­nience caused.”

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Ari­ma May­or Lisa Mor­ris-Julien ex­pressed shock, ad­mit­ting there was no warn­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the move.

“I found out about this on Face­book and this on­ly means that it will af­fect all busi­ness­es in Ari­ma…I cer­tain­ly hope it would be re­solved soon,” Mor­ris-Julien said.

How­ev­er, she said this is­sue raised the prospect that the time had come for Ari­ma to get its own ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex.

“Ari­ma needs our own ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex to avoid oc­cur­rences such as these. A space where all gov­ern­ment agen­cies can be un­der one roof. Right now we are at the whims and fan­cies of land­lords, we need our own space,” she added.

A woman who went to con­duct busi­ness on Thurs­day at the build­ing, which is lo­cat­ed on Prince Street, said she met staff locked out­side.

“They just told me that they were clos­ing down the build­ing be­cause it was not safe. The mem­bers of staff did not even get no­tices…as a re­sult I was forced to go to San­gre Grande to con­duct my busi­ness. This is a re­al mess and this need ad­dress­ing ur­gent­ly,” the woman said.

A mem­ber of staff, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said they would be re­de­ployed this week.

“Some (staff) would be sent to Tu­na­puna and the oth­ers to San­gre Grande…it would cause some­what in­con­ve­nience to all af­fect­ed.”

How­ev­er, Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Reval Chat­ter­goon is ques­tion­ing whether the San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna of­fices are equipped and ad­e­quate­ly staffed to ac­com­mo­date the in­flux of cus­tomers who will now be re­ferred there.

“Will these of­fices ex­tend their hours of op­er­a­tion, in­crease their work­force and in­ter­nal ef­fi­cien­cy? Or will penal­ties for late pay­ment con­tribute to ad­di­tion­al rev­enue for the Gov­ern­ment?” Chat­ter­goon asked.

“The Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing on Min­istry of Fi­nance to rec­ti­fy this is­sue im­me­di­ate­ly and be more proac­tive in con­duct­ing re­me­di­al works at all their rev­enue of­fices and fa­cil­i­ties.”

Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the is­sue this week.