A spokesman for the MMA said that the Authority had paid pensioners for the first three months of the year retroactively and also for April, using its own resources.

He added that management was still pursuing the possibility of the Government taking over such payments since given the shortage of cash with which the Authority regularly has to contend, there was no guarantee that it could regularise payments to its ex-workers any time in the near future.

Most of the pensioners are employees who were declared redundant during rationalisation exercises carried out by the MMA over the past four years in order to cut costs.

Last year, Government made payments to redundant employees following similar application for assistance from the MMA.

Most ex-employees have claimed that these payments were only partial and they are still to receive their full severance and gratuity benefits.

Management of the Authority, which has confirmed that this is indeed the case, has identified low levels of payment on drainage and irrigation charges from farmers and proprietors in West Berbice and East Mahaicony as its main bugbear.

“If there is an improvement in payments of D&I charges owed to the Authority, we will be in a better position to pay former employees,” Chairman of the Board, Rudolph Gajraj disclosed.

He said the MMA was currently moving ahead with legal action against defaulting farmers and proprietors.

He disclosed that the MMA is aware that there is a high incidence of sub-letting of rice cultivation plots within the scheme.

As a result, Management intends to move towards recovering payments from persons who are actually cultivating plots of land even if they are not official lessees, he said. (CLIFFORD STANLEY)