The following is posted with minor edits by the blogmaster.
It is with a heavy heart and deep concern that I am forced to write this letter to you as it relates to the injustices that has been metered out to a good woman, a professional social worker with high ethical standards and one who does not deserve the treatment that she has received. It is not often that one can say that they have or had a good boss but although she had her faults like many of us, she was always fair, never held a grudge and always had an excuse or a reasons why people behaved poorly towards her or showed utter disrespect and yet she never wrote up or complained about an employee,
This is a woman who was a former Chief Welfare Officer, the Director of the Constituency Councils and never has a bad report, never had an audit query but yet under the present Minister of Youth Sports and Community Empowerment she was talk down to by the former Minister, had duties and responsibilities removed from her portfolio although she was the appointed Chief and was basically made to look incompetent because she has the audacity to quested why contracts were so high or why we were rewarding contracts to persons who has no tract records are building contractors.
In addition she was also removed from any interaction with Baje to the World as she would question the spend. The last showed cost over 1 million dollars, this one is set to over be more expensive as the coordinator has to get special meals catered, In addition all the duties that were previously performed by the staff of the Community Development Department is not farmed out and persons are paid elaborate sums to perform these chores.
Attached is the letter that shows the concocted reasons why Ms Greenidge was suspended. Note this sudden turn of events only came about because the new Minister was ready to give her a fair chance to prove herself as he was not prepare to listen to gossip. that meant that she would have been able to draw to his attention the exorbitant maintenance contracted awarded to persons, all from St George, mainly Ellerton and the fact that the sums awarded did not meet the work perform, It should also be noted that the Maintenance supervisor also has a firm that is awarded some of these contracts.
First allegation is a failure to report that accounts had over paid some maids during COVID – this is such a frivolous allegation as she is the head of the department and she can instruct accounts to make the necessary deductions to have the maids repaid the money as it was only a few hundred dollars. Persons have been over paid by this same Ministry and other by thousands of dollars and no one was dismissed for this. the PS do not need to get involve if a few hundred dollars, Also of note that this happen at the height of the pandemic, government was running 2 accounting systems and persons were paid on a spread sheet and also in smartstream, a simple mistake
Secondly in the estimates for the financial year money was placed there for the Department to purchase a vehicle, the Chief was in her right to ask any car dealership for information on a vehicle she felt would be the best fit for the Department, giving the nature of the work, Please note that no funds none can be disbursed by the accounts department unless it has the PS signature so how could she try to purchase a vehicle when all expenditure has to go through the PS. It is like money is put in the estimates to buy stationery and she has to ask the PS permission to get a quote from Brydens to purchase the stationery, no as head of the Department she can start the process to acquire any item as long as it is allotted for in the estimates the third point is so untrue the plans and the committee to start the Land ship project was well on the way before the former Minister stopped it, and he only did that because he did not like Ms Greenidge and wanted to reject any ideas she had, you can call Tyrone Trotman and he will verify what I am saying, It is well know that NIFCA and most of these programmes start in the Community Development Department at the grass root level and then we would had it over to the NCF or what other entity, and that is what she was trying to do no more,
The fourth point about the budget is untrue also the Baje to the World budget was not under the control of the Chief but the Dept Chief who was placed in charge after Ms Greenidge was removed from the programme and the Dept would have approved all the elaborate spending that was presented to her by the coordinator, it was obvious that that programme would have been over budget from day one as the set up for the mere auditions was such a waste of money that those preliminaries alone exceeded what was allocated for the year. The Dept must have been given a free rein to spend as she like and then Ms Greenidge was blamed when they was no money to pay persons
The fifth – failure to submit recommendations for acting in a timely manner – the chief is not responsible for this task that is the duty of the Dept. Chief who has responsibility for personnel matters.
And at six the Chief has the right to recommend who she feels is the best persons she believe can do the job, it does not have to be the more senior or the more qualified by she has the right to recommend who she deem the best fit. But the power lies with Personnel Administration to make the decision, so dispite who the chief recommend PAD still have the say on who gets the post
These concocted charges are just an attend to hide how the funds in the Community Development Department is being spent and who is benefiting from this spend.
I really hope that you look into this and get justice for Mrs. Sandra Greenidge
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