Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter in the of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Shiv­an­na Sam met with T&T Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) of­fi­cials yes­ter­day, af­ter a staff short­age forced a shut­down of op­er­a­tions on Tues­day.

At the meet­ing, the pri­ma­ry is­sue iden­ti­fied was a freeze on over­time and al­lowance pay­ments.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Min­is­ter El­der con­firmed that re­in­stat­ing these pay­ments formed part of short-term mea­sures to al­le­vi­ate the staffing chal­lenges fac­ing the TTMS.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he was told a freeze on the fill­ing of va­can­cies was part of the prob­lem. He said dur­ing his tenure, he sought and ob­tained Cab­i­net ap­proval to re­new ex­pired con­tracts and to fill va­cant per­ma­nent po­si­tions. Gon­za­les said the goal was to end the prac­tice of short-term em­ploy­ment, as some TTMS staff have worked on con­tracts rang­ing from one to six months for more than a decade. He ex­pressed con­cern that the cur­rent freeze could un­do progress achieved un­der his watch.

Ques­tioned about the rea­sons for the hir­ing freeze and non-pay­ment of al­lowances, El­der said TTMS em­ploy­ees had not re­ceived over­time pay­ments since late last year, un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

El­der al­so point­ed to long-term so­lu­tions un­der con­sid­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing ex­tend­ing con­tract du­ra­tions and even­tu­al­ly ab­sorb­ing TTMS staff in­to the Pub­lic Ser­vice through the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions De­part­ment.

“As a way for­ward, we have en­sured that pay­ments for over­time and on-call al­lowances for me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal of­fi­cers and ob­servers have been re­in­stat­ed,” El­der as­sured.