The Linden Utility Co-op Society Limited (LUSCL) yesterday cut the electricity supply to the town’s municipal daycare for outstanding payments leaving parents and teachers angry and Mayor Carwyn Holland calling the move insensitive and spiteful.
“They have some issue with the council and that was why I understand they cut the light, but what they don’t understand was that the place is be boiling hot and all dem babies in their were just crying crying,” a parent, who asked not to be named told Stabroek News yesterday via phone.
“That is heartless because one of the men that come to cut the line get family in the daycare. What these children do? They have beef with the council settle it don’t get petty like that. These people for real,” the angry parent added.
Following the power cut, the teachers called parents to notify them that there was no power and that foods that they had taken to be stored in the refrigerator would have to be collected.
Some parents opted to collect their children from the daycare, according to the parent this newspaper spoke with. Efforts to contact the company’s General Manager proved futile as calls to both his mobile and office lines went unanswered. Contacted, Mayor Holland confirmed the incident and informed that the reconnection fee was paid.
While he admitted that the council was in arrears to the utility company, he believes that the matter could have been dealt with differently. “Yes, we did owe them sixty something thousand dollars but the matter was in arbitration. We were negotiating. I understand that the town council staff got a raise and they said that if we could raise the salaries then we could afford to pay them. It is the manner in which they did it, it is not that it was cut,” he said.
“The children were indeed uncomfortable and when we heard of what happened we went to the office and paid the money and the $5,900 reconnection,” he added.
Holland said that the daycare was providing a service to working parents in the mining town and that the inconvenience yesterday, in having to abruptly leave work to collect their children, was a “cold” move on the utility company’s part.
“To think that the LUCSL would spite those little children and they are operating in this town, as a major entity is unbelievable,” he said. He is hoping that the town council and the utility company can have discussions so as to eliminate the possibility of there being a repeat.
