TURA: The three-day provisional budget session of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) began on Tuesday with the opposition NPP demanding clearance of pending salaries.
Leader of the opposition and former CEM Denang T Sangma said the replies given by CEM Boston Ch Marak on the floor of the house during question hour were “extremely unsatisfactory”.
Senior NPP MDC Dipul R Marak questioned the ruling Congress about GHADC’s financial position. He wanted to know what measures were taken to clear the long-pending salaries of the staff.
The GHADC employees have not received their salary for around 15 months.
Boston had informed the house that the financial position was not good and steps were being taken to clear the pending dues of the employees.
“He (Boston) did not even elaborate on how bad the situation was and what kind of steps were being taken to clear the dues. That is because he has no solution to the problem,” said Denang in a statement to the media after the end of the first day’s session.
NPP alleged that the Congress-led EC was now contemplating releasing only two months’ salary much to the dismay of the workers, many of whom have not been able to pay children’s school fees.
There are instances of some employees taking up daily labour work to meet ends.
“Boston rebelled and broke our Executive Committee early this year alleging that we were unable to pay the salaries of the employees. Today he is at the helm of affairs so why can’t he do justice that he has all along been demanding. He has created history of sorts by pushing GHADC to the worst financial situation ever. Never before has there been any record of employees going without getting paid for 15 months. Boston has broken the record books,” said Denang.
Meanwhile, not much progress was made by the district council as far as taking up projects under the Centre’s special assistance funding.
To a query from NPP on the number of projects completed under the central government’s special assistance funding, Boston informed that so far only nine projects have been completed.
