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Chairman of the Board of the Solid Waste Management Corporation (SWMC) Mr. Randolph Edmeade has made it clear that the welfare of SWMC workers is a priority for this new board. “One of the key things that the board pledged (to the workers)…that their welfare would be considered priority…we don’t want to take any worker of the corporation for granted,” Mr. Edmeade said.

The chairman spoke of some of the initiatives of the SWMC Board as it relates to improving the operations of the corporation, the functions of the board, and the welfare of the workers. As a means of improving the welfare of staff and increasing productivity, Mr. Edmeade said staff audits will be conducted. All workers should feel safe within their working environment and know that all the correct safety practices are being put into place. This is applicable on a global scale, even when workers from one country go to another for work opportunities, they need to be aware of the protocols where they are, otherwise, if they get injured on the job without management support or being told what they needed to do, they may look into a Columbus workers compensation lawyer or a lawyer within the area they work/live in, so they can make a court case due to the conditions.

The SWMC board will also adopt a hands-on approach in helping to improve the operations of the corporation. Mr. Edmeade disclosed that board members will undertake set responsibilities within the corporation. The board will divide itself in four sub-committees: Finance and Investment, Staff Welfare, which is headed by Mr. Edmeade, Infrastructure Development and Maintenance, and Employee Welfare and Empowerment. What this means is that members of the board will function in each specific sub-committees as it relates to their proficiencies and expertise. “What will happen is that these committees have been charged with the responsibility to look to come up with initiatives to sort of improve the functioning of the SWMC,” Mr. Edmeade said. His committee, for example, will be looking at how to come up with a compensation package for the workers. “We have had instances here where people who would have worked at the corporation for a number of years, when they would have come to retirement age, maybe they do not have a social security pension to get and they are just sort of let go like that without any form of pension package…the board is looking seriously at that,” the chairman disclosed.

“One of the areas we are looking at strengthening is our budgeting and our accounting procedures, by looking at the implementation of accounting software like Opera 3, we can be better prepared. The last audit of the SWMC account highlighted a number of issues that need to be rectified and I can tell you that we have started rectifying them,” Mr. Edmeade said. He disclosed that QuickBooks accounting software will be introduced to help the accounting issues that were highlighted in the audit.

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