BY NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
A Tax Coalition co-chair, while not advocating any mass civil service lay-offs, yesterday said the Government “should certainly have an attrition plan”.
Gowon Bowe’s comments came as a key Cabine minister said the Christie administration was “not reducing the size of the public service”.
Labour Minister Shane Gibson said: “If you look at countries all over the world and the Caribbean, they are reducing the size of the civil service.
“If you take the recommendations of a lot of the international organisations, if we follow what they say, we will reduce the the public service.”
Yet he added: “We are not reducing the size of the public service. We have maintained it, both administrations.”
The Government last week signed an industrial agreement with the Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) to increase the minimum wage for nearly 2,000 members by $800 a year.
BPSU members who received an annual wage of $10,700 will see that increased to $11,500. Based on 52 weeks in the year, and a 40-hour work week, the BPSU deal has increased the civil service minimum wage from $205.79 to $221.15 per week, or from $5.14 to $5.53 per hour.
Commenting on that agreement, Mr Gibson said: “We have looked at what the Government is able to do and we have decided along with the union that it is in the best interest of all parties to conclude a contract where you have various increases over the next five years.
“An agreement was reached, the workers understood the difficult fiscal position the Government was in, and they reached a compromise. We are very close to signing one or to two other agreements as well.
“We all live in Bahamas. For those union leaders who pretend to live in another country, we all live in the Bahamas. We all understand the challenges. When the economy was good, good increases were given out or what they considered good increases. We were able to give more.” Currently, there are over 20,000 people employed in the civil service.
But Mr Bowe told Tribune Business: “Ultimately we have a situation where we want to start reducing the size of the civil service, but not in a manner that will spark huge unemployment, and really there has to be a focus in terms of developing economic activity so that the private sector could take on any disengaged staff.”
Mr Bowe said increasing wages for the civil service would warrant increased productivity. “That is the element by which a very fine balance has to be struck with moving your salary levels. The process for reducing the size of the civil service needs to be addressed. When the Government is looking at fiscal reform overall, it needs to look at how it make itself more efficient and effective in terms of its expenditure,” he added.
The Tax Coalition co-chair told Tribune Business that the Government should not be introducing any mass layoff or redundancies, but should certainly have an attrition plan.
“It should be well-know nto the ministers and government departments where they deal with those who have reached retirement age,” he added.
“They should certainly be looking at a performance appraisal management system to say that persons are only being compensated for high performance, and that requires a very objective and documented system of appraisals so that the under performers are being weeded out and those who are performers are being promoted.”
Comments
sheeprunner12 9 years, 8 months ago
Yes............ we all live in The Bahamas .......... but there is too much wastage and duplication in civil service ............ we can effectively and efficiently get rid of 20% of the civil service ...... but it wont happen because it is the politicians' gravy train in The Bahamas
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