From Our Correspondent
TURA, Aug 18: The first serious overture to end the present crisis that has befallen the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council was made on Monday by the NPP-led Executive Committee which met leaders of the NGEA with the promise to release four months’ pending salaries to employees.
The offer made by GHADC CEM Albinush Marak was rejected outright by the NGEA leaders who have now decided to continue the protest until all 43 months of pending salary dues are cleared.
Speaking later to media persons, Marak, who was joined by Deputy CEM Nikman Marak, stated, “We now have in our hands an amount of Rs 24,45,09,200 which was released by Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma. This will be more than enough for the payment of 4 months’ pending salaries. In addition to this, one month’s pending salary that we had already planned to release earlier will also be given to them.”
Nikman informed that a meeting between was held last week where the Chief Minister assured that the state government would release the salaries directly into the GHADC’s account every month.
“We will no longer have to give the employees’ salaries but the state government will be releasing the salaries through the DC. For this, we will have to send the list of each and every employee to the DC,” he added.
According to Nikman, the salaries would be sent to the account of the GHADC by the state every month which would be adjusted continually, from the consolidated fund collected from major and minor minerals and transport duties.
Nikman also said that once the clearance of the pending salaries reaches a stage where the remaining backlog is just from 2025, it would be easier to clear the pending dues by later ECs. Nikman also claimed that random appointments without interviews or verifying one’s eligibility for different posts, were made by the then Congress EC which was the root cause of the salary crisis.
He blamed the present mess on the previous Congress-led EC in 2016, who recruited randomly, swelling the number of employees to over 2,300 by the time the EC was dissolved.
Meanwhile, civil society organisations (CSOs) from Garo Hills, including GSU, FKJGP, ADE, AYWO, FAF, and TGSU, rallied through Tura to show their support for the cause of the employees before reaching William Point to join the protest.
The protestors later stormed into the premises of the GHADC, adamant on carrying out their protest from within the Council premises.
The CSO leaders stressed the need to ensure salaries were cleared by the GHADC before any serious thought of withdrawal would happen. They also raised serious questions about the functioning of the Council, mooting for reform to stop corruption.
The CSOs questioned the lack of transparency in the GHADC, which allowed for revenue leakages that take place every day.
They argued that without the implementation of Service and Finance Rules and things like digitisation of payments to cut down revenue leaks, the Council and its employees would continue to suffer.
ADE president Dalseng B. Ch. Momin came down hard on the lack of transparency in the GHADC, which allowed for revenue leakages that take place every day. He claimed that the GHADC is an independent and autonomous body and that the state would not interfere. He also hit out at Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma, who recently made a statement that the GHADC was an independent and autonomous body and the state would not interfere.
Tengsak Momin promised to support the cause of the employees while stating that the protest should be held at the premises of the GHADC, which is the property of the entire Garo tribe. He later led the employees and CSO members alike in storming into the Council and promising to start the agitation afresh within the Council premises.
The CSOs also added that they would continue the demand for the payment of salaries, the implementation of Garo Customary Law (GCL), separate electoral roll, and the setting up of finance and service rules within the Council. They promised to announce their next mode of agitation in the coming days after discussions between themselves and the NGEA.