PHILIPSBURG:--- The Minister of Economic Affairs Ernest Sams whom MP Leona Marlin Romeo described as man with a good name chose to increase the scale and salary for an employee of Civil Aviation from scale 11 to scale 15. Reliable information reaching SMN News identified the employee as Steven Duzong who works at Civil Aviation and happens to be a good friend of someone working in the Minister’s cabinet.
The source said that the Minister of TEATT Ernest Sams chose to do the salary increase through a Ministerial Beschikking in order to bypass the Governor.
With the increase given to Dunzong, he is now making more monies that the section head, department head and the Secretary General of the Ministry of TEATT. Some of the employees working in the Ministry are furious with the decision taken by the Minister who spent about two weeks in office, before the motion of no confidence was passed by a majority in parliament against the entire Gumbs cabinet. “The country cannot balance its budget there are constraints placed on government to pay off its debts and most of all the move by the Minister has set a bad precedence since all civil servants who deserves an increase in salary will now be looking for it since at least one was able to get a drastic increase through political contacts and also by not following procedures.
SMN News further learnt that a civil servant that is also working in the Minister’s cabinet is working to get a huge salary and promotion but it could not be confirmed if the Minister managed to fix things up for Jude Hudson who works at the department of Economic Affairs.
Minister Sams could not be reached by telephone on Tuesday for a comment on his decision to increase the for Duzong without following proper procedures.