KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SLRC) re­mains in lim­bo over the fu­ture of its Aranguez Main Road head­quar­ters, with chair­man Richard Wal­cott say­ing there has been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from ei­ther the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment or the State-owned Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) since as­sur­ances were giv­en that the mat­ter would be re­solved.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Wal­cott said it was busi­ness as usu­al as op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued as nor­mal de­spite the un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing its oc­cu­pan­cy of the build­ing.

He added that the Cor­po­ra­tion re­mains un­able to make any de­ci­sions about its fu­ture ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Wal­cott said, “Noth­ing. Came to work nor­mal. The place is qui­et. Noth­ing from MTS. Noth­ing from the Min­istry. Every­body is qui­et, so I am go­ing to call the Min­is­ter to­mor­row to get an up­date as to what is tak­ing place. We are at a stand­still now. We don’t know what to do. If to move left, right, we’re just wait­ing on the Min­is­ter to in­form us what is the next de­ci­sion.”

De­spite the Min­is­ter’s as­sur­ance that a meet­ing in­volv­ing all par­ties would be held to re­solve the is­sue, Wal­cott said no fur­ther up­dates had been pro­vid­ed, leav­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion wait­ing for di­rec­tion from the Min­istry.

The lat­est de­vel­op­ment comes a few days af­ter Wal­cott de­clared that the Cor­po­ra­tion would not va­cate the build­ing it has oc­cu­pied for more than 30 years, de­spite a dead­line re­port­ed­ly is­sued by MTS for the Cor­po­ra­tion to leave the premis­es by Ju­ly 31.

Last Fri­day, Wal­cott told Guardian Me­dia the Cor­po­ra­tion had been prepar­ing to re­lo­cate to a build­ing on El So­cor­ro Main Road af­ter be­ing ad­vised that Cab­i­net had ap­proved the move. How­ev­er, he claimed the re­lo­ca­tion was halt­ed by the Gov­ern­ment at the last minute, leav­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 200 em­ploy­ees un­cer­tain about their work­ing arrange­ments.

The Min­is­ter said the dis­pute cen­tred on the Cor­po­ra­tion’s con­tin­ued oc­cu­pa­tion of the MTS-owned build­ing af­ter its lease ex­pired in 2021.

While Ameen has main­tained that the is­sue orig­i­nat­ed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion and has as­sured work­ers that it will be re­solved, Wal­cott has pre­vi­ous­ly ar­gued that the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion has cre­at­ed un­nec­es­sary un­cer­tain­ty for em­ploy­ees.

Wal­cott has al­so ac­cused MTS of fail­ing to prop­er­ly main­tain the build­ing, cit­ing re­cur­ring air-con­di­tion­ing prob­lems, ter­mites and oth­er main­te­nance is­sues, while ar­gu­ing that the Cor­po­ra­tion has been treat­ed with dis­re­spect through­out the process.

Re­spond­ing to the Cor­po­ra­tion’s con­cerns, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen told Guardian Me­dia last week that a meet­ing in­volv­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry, MTS and the Cor­po­ra­tion was be­ing arranged to re­solve the is­sue.

She al­so said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing to avoid dis­rup­tion to staff and mem­bers of the pub­lic who re­ly on ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the Cor­po­ra­tion.

Ef­forts to con­tact Ameen and MTS of­fi­cials yes­ter­day for an up­date were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.