Employees concerned about no pay

National

LAE Urban local level government (LULLG) employees on Friday expressed their concerns at the Lae council chamber about not being paid for two fortnights.
The employees claimed that they had attended work and completed tasks but had not been paid.
The situation comes about after the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) placed a garnishee order dated Feb 22, 2019 on the LULLG’s bank account for debts over K4 million.
The employees said they had experienced hardship because of not being paid and called on the LULLG and Lae City Authority (LCA) management to meet them to resolve the matter.
LCA chief executive officer Neil Ellery said their grievances were valid and asked all parties involved to come to an understanding to have the matter amicably resolved.
He told the employees that LCA was ready to use its bank account to pay the wages of the employees but said there needed to be a signed agreement in place before payments were made.
He said LCA would not take LULLG liabilities as this was an issue created by the previous administration.
Lae City manager Joel Kolam said the debts that the LULLG had accumulated were created by the last administration and the current one was trying to settle but the employees were suffering in the process.
“Both LCA and LULLG need to come to an understanding on this issue to solve it as employees are affected,” Kolam said.