Unvaccinated employee an obstruction to Councillors and contractors

A LARGE NUMBER OF REGION TEN COUNCILLORS AND CONTRACTORS were
not paid last week because the Finance Ministry refused an unvaccinated Sub Treasury staff
entry to the building to uplift the necessary cheques.
“The employee (name provided) turned up and after they couldn’t produce their vaccination card
to verify that they had been vaccinated they were turned away from the Ministry of Finance. The
sad thing is that turning away one person severely affected a number of persons as almost all the
councilors and several contractors’ who have employees to pay were severely affected,” a
usually reliable www.aroundtheregions.com source disclosed.
The Irfaan Ali administration is finding vaccine hesitancy in the population a major hurdle to
overcome and has taken the tough stance to refuse the unvaccinated entry to government
buildings without prior approval. The source maintained that though understandable, the decision
will have a ‘backlash’.
“They (Government) will be able to force some but they can’t force all and from what I am
hearing and seeing people are prepared to retaliate and frankly I don’t blame them. What I hope
that the public will know is, that there are many senior and junior public servants who are not in
agreement with the nonsense that this government has begun. While we may not say that we are
in disagreement, we welcome whatever action that the public choses to maintain their human
rights,” the source stressed.
Alliance For Change (AFC) Regional Councillor in Upper Demerara/Berbice (Region Ten), Mr.
Norris King, admitted that indeed a number of Councillors were turned away as their cheques
had not arrived and the government was tightlipped on the issue.
“What I know is that a number of contractors and Councillors couldn’t get their cheques for their
travelling and other things and we heard that there was a delay in it, but we were never told the
reason why,” King said
“Almost all the Councilors have been affected by not getting their cheques and nothing has been
said as to when this will be sorted out or what the problem is,” King noted.

A senior regional official everyone should be cognisant of the new environment, rules and
regulations in which employees now operate and make the necessary adjustments.
“There is no excuse for anyone not being vaccinated and it's unfortunate that these persons were
inconvenienced. But I think that the officer who went to uplift the cheques is the one solely
responsible for the delay as (the person) should have indicated their vaccine status prior to
going…allowing someone else to execute that responsibility,” the official argued.
“I am sure that if they had indicated that they were not vaccinated someone else would
have been sent for the cheques as I will not say that the Regional Democratic Council
(RDC) deliberately did this,” the Senior RDC official said.