JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired work­ers from the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) on Fri­day staged a protest out­side the MTS Plaza, Aranguez, call­ing for an­swers on when they will be paid their gra­tu­ity.

The work­ers, hold­ing signs, rang bells and shout­ed loud enough for man­age­ment to hear that they want­ed their monies, not in part and as soon as pos­si­ble.

Dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment on State en­ter­pris­es ear­li­er this year, it was re­vealed that the com­pa­ny is owed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $850 mil­lion by the Gov­ern­ment and sev­er­al State agen­cies, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ow­ing an es­ti­mat­ed $180 mil­lion to con­trac­tors and ser­vice providers.

Leader of the group, Eliz­a­beth Wharfe, said the debt owed to MTS should not de­ter the com­pa­ny from pay­ing what they are owed and have been owed for years now.

She said some have been wait­ing up to six years for their gra­tu­ity.

“It is hard to have re­tirees hav­ing to come out to get their mon­ey, and that is gra­tu­ity mon­ey. You are talk­ing about mem­bers who have been wait­ing over three years, you know, five, four, three, two, many years, right? And we are say­ing it is un­fair. It is re­al­ly un­fair, and it is trou­bling. You have a lot of re­tirees here who may lose their car, lose their house be­cause this gra­tu­ity mon­ey is like a sav­ings.”

One of the re­tirees, To­bag­on­ian Claude George, said each time he comes to Trinidad to meet with man­age­ment con­cern­ing his mon­ey, he leaves dis­ap­point­ed and fi­nan­cial­ly frus­trat­ed.

“We need all our mon­ey right now be­cause noth­ing is com­ing in, and MTS is tak­ing us for a joy ride.

We are fight­ing for every­one. If it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gan­der,” he said, adding that he has been wait­ing for over a year for his mon­ey.

Guardian Me­dia called and mes­saged Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary Lana Lakhan but got no re­sponse.

Wharfe said there was a one-time pay­ment of $50,000 for some work­ers, but that was on­ly par­tial pay­ment and is de­mand­ing that the Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo ur­gent­ly ad­dress the mat­ter.

She added that Fri­day’s protest was not about pol­i­tics, as they have been de­mand­ing their mon­ey un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion as well.

Re­tired build­ing su­per­vi­sor Heer­alal Sookhai said he joined the cause be­cause wait­ing for a year to get his just due was be­com­ing frus­trat­ing.

“We call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ty, whether it be Mr (Bar­ry) Padarath, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. We need them to in­ter­vene be­cause the com­pa­ny is just giv­ing us a run around. Every time is they work­ing on it, but we see no work be­ing done.”