Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner has handed over $309,000 to the Chaguanas Borough Corporation to cover the salaries of the 54 contract workers who were sent home by the Borough last week.

At a media conference held at the Mayor’s office in Chaguanas yesterday, Warner said Mayor Natasha Navas wrote him last week asking for assistance in dealing with the matter.

Warner said he ’found the money’ and delivered a cheque to the corporation that will allow the workers to be re-employed for two months-August 1 to September 30.

The workers-mostly single mothers with short term contracts-were last week told by the corporation that their contracts would not be renewed because of financial constraints at the corporation.

Mayor Navas and former mayor Suruj Rambachan have blamed each other for the retrenchment.

Navas declined to comment yesterday about the source of Warner’s money.

In a press release yesterday, the UNC’s political leader Basdeo Panday called on Warner to use $300,000 of the $30 million that Warner ’admittedly received on behalf of the party prior to the last general elections’ to pay the workers.

Asked where he got the money, Warner said, ’Don’t worry where the money came from, just where it is going.’

He said as a private citizen he could not pay the workers directly and had to give the money to the corporation.

Deputy Mayor Orlando Nagessar said he was grateful for the money.

Nagessar said councillors were willing to give up some of their stipends to see how the workers could have benefitted.

He said Panday wrote to Prime Minister Patrick Manning asking for help, but there was no response.