According to Ponce, when he and Quijano took over the ownership of the legislative branch, they reached a large number of positions transferred from contracts in the Salary Law.
Following complaints from the Assembly’s union that there are 1,200 “ghost places” in the legislative branch; the president of the Congress, Mario Ponce, from PCN, came out yesterday clarifying this situation.
According to Ponce, when he took over the administration of the Assembly, he found that many positions had already been held in previous administrations, which he tried to “order the house”, but could not because of the “interests of the other parties”, although he began a voluntary retirement decree in which he offered compensation of up to $ 35,000, so that “all those who do not work in the institution or who are others in the institution to leave. Only 14 people did not want to go “, Ponce cried.
He specifically referred to the period spent by GANA MP Guillermo Gallegos, as head of the first state body, in the last year and a half of the 2015-2018 legislature.
Ponce took command of the Assembly in the second half of the current legislature. The first year and a half was made by the deputy Norman Quijano, from ARENA, who received the reins of the Assembly from the hands of Gallegos, who ended the second term of the previous administration which ended in April 2018.
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“I can’t cancel what other administrations have done in the past either, the former president (of the Assembly) Norman Quijano, when he left, when he handed me over, he gave me a complicated situation, he fired staff from those who mention, who had been hired for the previous president (Gallegos), a person, a deputy who brags about the roofs, did the wrong procedure and was “mara cobra”, as they say, but the courts forced me to reinstate them “, Ponce said at a news conference yesterday.
When Quijano took over as President of the Assembly in May 2018, he also filed a complaint to that effect. On that occasion, he denounced the employment of 186 employees during February-May of that year authorized by Gallegos.
“I want to tell you that the latter (places) represent 258 thousand dollars per month, there are 186 people. These are transfers made between February 1, 2018 – May 4, 2018. As he hurried quite a lot to work on this issue “, Quijano denounced at that time.
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He added that in the last month of April alone, the Gallegos administration hired 19 people under contract and 16 under the Wages Act, and that most wages ranged from $ 650 to $ 1,600 a month.
Gallegos defended himself against Ponce’s accusations. “It is not possible for them to say that after three years, to take responsibility for their decisions and to take full responsibility for what they have done in the last three years, to turn the Assembly into a place where they have hired ARENA activists. and the Cuscatlán department, in the last year and a half of the Assembly “, Gallegos underlined.
The alleged existence of large seats in parliamentary groups and that they then move from the contractual system to the Wages Law regime, a few days before the end of a legislature or, in the worst case, that there are employees who receive a salary for which they do not work, it is a common theme in the meantime from one legislature to another.
The General Secretary of the Assembly Union (Sitral), Luis Ortega, assured that in the last days these people who are supposed to receive only their salary, but who never came to work, were seen on the legislative corridors marking the cards.
However, Ponce said that some people who were sent home on telecommunications due to the pandemic began arriving at the Assembly on March 1 and that, by law, they have the right to continue working.