By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Monday 12th November 2018)–Well-known heavy equipment operator Wilmoth Doyling of Challengers Village who protested outside Government Headquarters in June 2017 tells this media house that “things are even worse now” stemming from the situation which initially pushed him to take to the streets in a one-man protest back then.
“Since I did the demonstration nobody from government reach out to me to hear my views and that’s why I say it’s even worse now. I have put up my truck and backhoe for sale because it’s really difficult. I am behind with some of my bills; it’s really difficult. Anyone interested in buying the equipment can contact me [662-3108],” shares the owner of Doyling’s Backhoe and Trucking Services.
Doyling had been doing work with the National Housing Corporation (NHC) since 1997. He says when he started, he did most of his work through NHC which he counts at about 75% of the jobs he carried out compared to the private work he did.
He says that after the government changed over three years ago, he realised that for a while things would be slow.
“After a while, I realise that I wasn’t getting no calls from NHC”, he commented whilst pointing out that he understood things were slow.
As gathered, after exercising a bit of patience, he noticed the small jobs had stopped.
According to him, in August 2016 he got a call from NHC to clean up around a house in the Half Way Tree community which saw a deduction of his payment due to pipes damaged during that clean-up operation.
After going to collect the cheque having sent his invoice to NHC for the $2700 job was reduced to $2000.
Doyling says there were pipes leading up to the septic tank of the unoccupied house which got broken up in the process of digging out the trees.
As told by him, he informed the NHC technical guy that some of the pipes got broken up to which he got the response that such was expected due to the nature of the work.
He has explained that his payment for the job was cut after a decision by a certain NHC top female official who talked about paying back for the damaged pipes during a meeting. Prior to that deduction, he had indicated his objection to his money being cut since he “couldn’t help with the pipes breaking.”
As gathered, the meeting was held after Doyling visited the company’s accounts department and found out that no cheque was prepared for him.
He said during the meeting which saw the presence of a technical NHC employee (male), the female official said Doyling should have come back to NHC and the trees would have been cut the trees down by NHC and put a chemical to uproot; an alternative which he (Doyling) also challenged since “it did not make sense.”
After that situation, Doyling said he got “very few NHC jobs.”
Then in about April 2017 got a call from NHC to dig two foundations in NHC. He went on to say that after speaking with the contractor about casting the footing promised to bring the materials the afternoon or next day.
The following week of the casting activity, he received another call from NHC Instructing not to carry any material on the job since the person who was supposed to dig the two foundations originally did not have an 18 inch bucket and “ that’s why [I} was called to dig the foundation.”
After expressing that such was “not fair”, he told the NHC caller to ask the top female official to get in touch with him.
Doyling says during that phone conversation with her, she Questioned what he did not understand about the order given for him to “do not carry no materials because the person who was supposed to dig the foundations didn’t have no 18-inch bucket” to which he replied “Well, that ain’t got nothing to do with me. That is not fair.”
“She said to me: Doyling you are too greedy,” he says. He went on to point out he out that before hanging up the phone she said that Lindsay Grant (Minister of Tourism, International Trade, Industry and Commerce) was supposed to visit the NHC the next day and that she would tell him how greedy he (Doyling) is.
According to Doyling, he had the purchase order “with everything” before he dug the foundations.
In an effort to address the matter, he reached out to a female friend employed at NHC for advice, and was told to speak with the company’s chairman following which Doyling’s situation did not improve though the chairman listened closely to the complaints.
After an attempt to get in touch with Minister Grant (who happens to be his parliamentary representative in Constituency Four) via phone the Monday of Music Festival, he shared that he was told by the minister that he did not have time for him then because it was Music Festival Week and that he should check back with him the following week.
As the Parliamentary Representative for the area, Doyling says he expected to have a talk with Grant in the village as opposed to meeting with him in an office.
The businessman also shares that bus drivers and the Public Works Department often contact him when big stones from the hillside affect traffic along the Old Road Bay.
Doyling who describes himself as a “community man” says he has done the stone clean-ups for years without any pay and so he felt “really bad” when Grant indicated that he did not have any time for him that week.
He says that while he protested on Church Street the Friday of Music Festival week, Minister Eugene Hamilton (Minister of Agriculture, Health, National Health Insurance, Human Settlement, Community Development, Gender Affairs, Social Services, Cooperatives and Land) who took his number and promised to call him never did him while Grant questioned him about why it led to a protest.
Doyling’s 2017 placard partly read: “Members and friends of the People’s Action Movement and Team Unity. You say share [Fair) for All. The rain is falling on all over the Federation but the grass is not growing at all……I need some work to do to buy food and pay for my equipment.”
Photo: Wilmoth Doyling (Spokesman Snap)