Former Chaguanas mayor Surujrattan Rambachan has said that, if he had remained in office, no workers would have been put on the breadline.

Rambachan was responding to claims by the newly appointed Mayor, Natasha Navas, that he was partly responsible for the retrenchment of 54 contract workers at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation. Many of those workers were litter wardens.

Rambachan said of Navas’s statement: ’This just goes to show the lack of knowledge of how the system works. She is saying that I was supposed to break the service, but the objective is not to put people on the breadline.’

Navas told the media that Rambachan was aware of the corporation’s constraints but refused to take action to assist the workers.

Rambachan said when the corporation’s budget was reduced last year, $250,000 was taken out of contract employment. ’But I found $209,000 from other areas and put it in that area, so that no one would be sent home. Had I been there I would have ensured that at least the litter wardens and hand cart workers remained. This means that you are taking a clean town, which I left, and making it into a virtual dump,’ he said.

Rambachan said it would be a tragedy if the workers were to take up positions in other corporations. ’These are well-trained people and we were lucky to have them in Chaguanas. Within two years the litter wardens had 1,700 cases before the court and now these matters would be thrown out. There are many ways to keep these people and I think it should have been exploited,’ he said.

The workers were told last week that their contracts would not be renewed because of financial constraints within the corporation. Several retrenched workers met Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday last Thursday during his two-hour-long visit at the corporation.