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Tuesday, August 26, 2025

‘Poor work ethic at corporations costing $’

by

Shaliza Hassanali
2201 days ago
20190816

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein de­scribed pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at the coun­try’s 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions “as the worst” as he called on CEOs to en­sure that work­ers give an “hon­est day’s work for an hon­est day’s pay”.

Ho­sein’s com­ments came yes­ter­day at a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form) Bill chaired by Clarence Ramb­harat at the J Hamil­ton Mau­rice Room, Par­lia­ment Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Ap­pear­ing be­fore the com­mit­tee were may­ors, CEOs and em­ploy­ees of the Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ch­a­gu­nanas and Point Fortin cor­po­ra­tions.

The bill which was laid in the Low­er House seeks to amend the ex­ist­ing mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion’s act and sev­er­al pieces of its cur­rent leg­is­la­tion.

It al­so serves to make the de­liv­ery of ser­vices and goods more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive.

Ho­sein told Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez that there was a con­sen­sus that ser­vices were not fil­ter­ing down to burgess­es, stat­ing that fund­ing has al­ways been a prob­lem.

How­ev­er, Mar­tinez point­ed out that we tend “to hide be­hind the cur­rent act to say what we can not do ver­sus what we should be try­ing to do.”

Cor­po­ra­tions, Mar­tinez said need­ed to be more cre­ative in ser­vice de­liv­ery.

“We hide be­hind the act more than any­thing else. We bug it down with so many things.”

Ho­sein said one thing he no­ticed that “pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at the cor­po­ra­tions is the worst.”

It was ha­bit­u­al, Ho­sein said for em­ploy­ees to show up at odd hours on the job.

Ho­sein said CEOs should en­sure that em­ploy­ees come to work on time.

“We bring­ing the re­form...but the re­form could come but the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty could still be low. You can­not wait for the re­form...the re­form will come but we have to deal with pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. We have to en­sure that the CEOs man­age the cor­po­ra­tions. That is their job.”

Ho­sein said CEOs who ar­rive at work 10 am were not set­ting a good ex­am­ple for em­ploy­ees.

This, he said must be ad­dressed.

The cor­po­ra­tions have 14,000 em­ploy­ees.

Mar­tinez said this was an on­go­ing prob­lem not on­ly at cor­po­ra­tions but “in­dis­ci­pline in our so­ci­ety that we have al­lowed to es­cape us for years.”

Mar­tinez held the view that re­form will guide us, but it would not change dis­ci­pline.

“We have to in­still dis­ci­pline from the get-go. And we have been try­ing to do that at the cor­po­ra­tion. We have even spo­ken about let­ter writ­ing.”

Mar­tinez said such work­ers are not giv­en warn­ing let­ters to show their in­frac­tion.

“Is al­ways like some part­ner or friend­ship sys­tem that they have a bond for years where they can come to­geth­er to not get the job done and not go to work.”

Mem­ber Su­ruj Ram­bachan ex­pressed con­cern about CEOs who did not help in the up­lift­ment of cor­po­ra­tions but had been pro­mot­ed to act­ing deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­taries.

Ram­bachan be­lieved that we were 50 per cent in­ef­fi­cient in lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

“We are los­ing mon­ey in lo­cal gov­ern­ment dai­ly be­cause of slack­ness on the part of CEOs and they don’t want to en­force the law.”

Ram­bachan said to com­pound mat­ters Gov­ern­ment was not pro­vid­ing re­sources, equip­ment was sit­ting idly by while labour­ers who col­lect­ed $125 an hour were sel­dom on the job.


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