Corentyne Water Users Association workers not paid in six months

Feb 17, 2009 News

About 30 workers of the No. 52-74 Water Users Association are complaining of having not been paid for the past six months, and their repeated requests have been met with unfulfilled promises.
The association is responsible for maintaining secondary drainage and irrigation canals, and hired the workers to clean the trenches and canals.
Chairman of the association, Mr Ramlagan Singh, said the workers are aware that they cannot be paid unless the association collects payments from the rice farmers.
The rice farmers, in turn, have not been paying readily, since the rice mill they have sold their seed paddy to has not been forthcoming with payments.
However, the workers claim that six months is too long a wait.
Singh said that January payments are now available, but workers who turned up yesterday were told differently.
He said that, as regards payments for the previous months, he is now trying to put measures in place for those payments to be made, since he is new in the post. He said that payments were not made under the past administration of the association. Singh took over in October, 2008.
The workers are saying that the non-payment is putting “a strain” on them.