GPOC fraud…
PRESIDENT of the Postal and Telecommunication Workers Union (PTWU) Mr. Harold Shepherd said yesterday that his union is looking to settle its difference with the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) in an amicable manner and the best interest of GPOC employees.

He told the Guyana Chronicle that the union is willing to work with the GPOC management to resolve the matter and hinted that it might be taken to arbitration.

Shepherd said his membership will be meeting today to decide the way forward.

On Monday, he had said members countrywide will go on strike yesterday after GPOC refused to withdraw a statement the union deemed damaging, that 19 postmasters were alleged to have been involved in a fraud.

But he stepped back from that threat yesterday.

GPOC, in a press statement last week Thursday, said 19 postmasters and staff members of its Finance Department are under investigation for money order fraud involving in excess of $1M.

The next day Shepherd said, if GPOC did not retract it within 72 hours, workers will take industrial action.

He said union representatives met GPOC Chairman, Bishop Juan Edghill, on Monday and discussed the issue but said the latter was reluctant to heed the ultimatum.

Shepherd contended that the GPOC management tried to brand everybody in the post offices as thieves and that was unbecoming to the hard-working employees, most notable those who have given their best over the past 20 years.

He said, too, that the alleged fraud is under investigation and the issuing of the statement by GPOC was premature.

However, Edghill, at a media briefing Monday, said, categorically, that he has never referred to any of the 19 postmasters nor any of their staff as thieves, as is being implied by their trade union.

He said the PTWU President and General-Secretary were provided with copies of the option given those implicated, asking that they document their verbal commitment to repay monies.

Edghill said he made it clear that the postmasters, during a meeting at which the same union representatives were present, were given two choices from which to choose, one to receive notices of interdiction from duty to facilitate an independent investigation in order to establish the circumstances surrounding the money order fraud and two, to pay back the monies and answer departmental charges.

He said the postmasters, by consensus and through the voices of their representatives, requested to exercise the restitution option and, accordingly, the Human Resources Manager was instructed to write all 19 postmasters, who were charged with negligence in the performance of their duties and deviation from standard operational procedures.

Yet, at a recent meeting with the core managers, Edghill said he discovered that only five of the 19 postmasters had documented responses to their letters.

He said he was further appalled to learn that, in those letters, the five said something which was totally different to what was previously stated in the presence of union representatives.