Non Gazetted employees of GHADC refuse to call off strike

Newmai News Network
SHILLONG, May 18: The Non Gazetted Employees Association (NGEA) of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) on Tuesday rejected the offer of the Tura MP, Agatha Sangma, who had asked the employees to call off the strike while accepting the 5 months’ salary being offered by the NPP led EC in the Council.
The NGEA has been on a work related strike since the past few months, which has crippled the entire GHADC over the 34 months of salaries that are pending for the Council employees. Earlier, on May 17, Agatha had written to the NGEA through its president, Senora Johny Arengh, asking them to call off the agitation.
“We are thankful to the MP for showing solidarity with us at this time. We cannot accept her request of 5 months' salary as we are demanding the entire 34 months pending dues. We have huge loans that need to be paid off and also have families to care for. We also have to clear our children’s fees and credit that we have taken from shops. The 5 months salary will not be enough as banks will automatically deduct the pending dues and leave us with nothing,” said joint secretary, Flaming Marak, through a press release.
While rejecting the offer, the NGEA requested the MP to take up their matter with the central government for financial assistance and package. They also requested the MP take up the matter with the state government to help clear their dues.
They also asked her to initiate inquiry into irregularities, mismanagement of funds from revenue, royalty as well as implementation of central schemes in GHADC from 2015-2020. Lastly the employees asked the MP to invite the families of all those that lost their lives due to the lack of money for treatment, so that she would feel the pain of theirs first hand.  They also expressed shock at the concern of the MP for their cause, questioning her silence on the matter.
“While we understand her concern over the issue and the GHADC will not be able to function, what about feeding ourselves and our children. The pubic's inconvenience, like renewing their land patta, trade license etc is still tolerable but spending days without food is intolerable,” he asserted.