MANJULA Devi has been appointed Ba Town Council acting CEO following a directive by Local Government Minister Maciu Nalumisa.
The development comes as workers walked off their jobs on Wednesday morning over what they claim were unauthorised pay deductions, ill treatment of staff and a promised 10 per cent pay increase which did not eventuate under previous acting CEO Moshim Khan, who is also a special administrator.
Mr Nalumisa said special administrators were not supposed to be dealing with the council’s operations.
Ms Devi said the staff were made aware of the appointment of a new acting CEO on Wednesday by Mr Nalumisa.
“We had only meetings at the market where the workers were on strike,” she said.
“He (Mr Nalumisa) has spoken with the union rep Satish, and I was present there.
Ms Devi confirmed all staff returned to work yesterday.
“Yesterday we had a problem, like we were unable to do grass cutting and street sweeping, but there were six people who were doing garbage collection.”
She said Mr Khan gave a proposal to the union representative to increase members’ salaries.
“We were supposed to pay for 2024 and 2025. So, Mr Khan said at the moment we can pay for one year, then the next financial year, that is August, he will look into that.”
Ms Devi also clarified that only one staff member’s pay had been deducted.
“His pay has been deducted or reduced because it was Satish, the union rep, who said that we cannot increase anybody’s pay. We should have consulted the union before increasing it.
“Before we were paying him $5.41 and then last October his pay was increased to $7 but regarding the deduction, only his pay was affected, not any other worker.”
Ms Devi said the union had proposed that a memorandum of agreement be signed or discussions held with the union before staff salaries could be increased.
