A day after chief minister, Conrad Sangma, claimed that the NPP led government in the Council cleared more salary than what was before, the Non Gazetted Employees Association (NGEA) disagreed with the statement.
“When the term of the last executive committee of the Congress ended, there was only 6 months of pending dues in terms of salaries. When the NPP led EC came to the GHADC they completely neglected to pay salaries and left us with 26 months of pending salaries,” said NGEA president, Senora Johny Arengh.
The employees questioned the silence of the CM on the matter till now stating that the sudden claim seems to be aimed at the upcoming elections to the GHADC on April 9.
“The CM has been silent but suddenly woke up on the issue of salary, claiming that his Government had cleared the salary of the employees of GHADC for many months just because election to GHADC is coming. If CM is so serious on the payment of salary to GHADC why CM was so silent for many years when more than 25 employees of GHADC died due to non-payment of salary,” asked joint secretary, Flaming Marak.
They further stated that if the CM was so concerned about the payment of salaries, why was he not arranging the money to pay them and also not releasing the pending Rs 55 crores due to the GHADC by the state government.
The NGEA accused the chief minister of only caring for his party now that elections were round the corner.
“He wants to ask a vote from the common man by talking about the issue of non-payment of salary and claiming that his NPP party was able to clear the salary. This is unacceptable and condemnable. Last year we were promised 2 months salaries in Dec but are yet to receive the amount in our accounts. These are total lies and they have cheated the employees of the GHADC by making false promises,” alleged the NGEA members through a press communiqué.