WILLEMSTAD.- On October 31, there will be an urgent meeting at Selikor. The director, Wesley Kook in a letter addressed to the staff already informed, that certain departments of the garbage collection company must reduce their expenses by 5%. In the minds of the workers there is the fear that maybe they will send them home. After three weeks ago, the company made the decision to suspend the employment relationship with temporary workers, now employees in fixed service also fear for their own jobs.
The government’s measure to reduce Selikor’s monthly payment by 5% still has the company maneuvering to be able to comply with the service provided to the community in a responsible manner. To mitigate the lack of this income, Selikor immediately stopped working with 20 to 25 temporary workers and reassigned personnel from other departments again, in order to comply with the garbage collection service. But based on this letter from Director Kook on the reduction, more procedures must be executed to reduce expenses. For example, in this case, the rental of certain equipment and call for contractors to perform certain jobs.
But on the other hand, the end of the year is a very busy period for Selikor. There is much more trash to collect than normally and to top it off the rainy season adds up. Consequentially, to avoid paying too much money in overtime in order to be able to do all the work, Selikor again used the services of temporary workers. Despite this, Selikor was still late with his scheme to pick up garbage in certain areas.
With fewer staff and also the decision to rent less equipment than is possible, a situation is created that if for any reason Selikor’s own equipment deteriorates or does not work, the danger of not being able to comply with the service can frequently be higher. For this reason, for example, how far Selikor can achieve the cleaning of the main streets of Curaçao is being evaluated.
On the current liquidity problems that Selikor is confronting, there is talk with the Ministries of Public Health and Finance on the basis of cutting 5% in the monthly payment that the company receives. The company requested clarification on this issue such as whether Selikor will obtain again the Government’s payment as beforehand. Similarly Selikor wants to know when the old payments that the Government owes to the company will be paid.
