State Minister for Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle.
By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
lmunnings@tribunemedia.net
STATE Public Service Minister Pia Glover-Rolle said yesterday that by the first quarter of next year the government is aiming to resolve the long-standing concerns of public servants from the Ministry of Social Services.
Last month, public servants from the ministry protested for two days to voice their concerns about career advancements, promotions, salary increases and medical benefits.
Yesterday, Mrs Glover- Rolle assured public servants that the matter will be rectified in “short order”, adding that the human resources department’s “capacity” and years of backlog issues contributed to the delay.
She confirmed that the Public Service Commission is processing a “number of batches” of promotions and confirmations for public servants from the Department of Social Services.
“We have a number of files that we’re still processing, we have to bear in mind that we are talking about decades and years of backlog issues with our Social Service workers and we’re working diligently to fix those issues,” she told reporters yesterday outside the Office of the Prime Minister.
“However, based on our human resources, capacity, we’re working as best we can. We did run into minor issues with the Social Services files in terms of a lot of missing documentation.”
According to Mrs Glover- Rolle, the Public Service Commission is scheduled to have a “special” meeting this week, noting that all processing will conclude by the end of this week.
When asked by a reporter how many files have been processed thus far Mrs Glover-Rolle was unable to give an exact estimate of the number.
She said: “I don’t have an estimation. This isn’t relative to numbers. I know we have about four trolleys that went down to the commission, so I don’t want to give numbers because I’m not sure, but a good batch has gone down.”
Last month, The Tribune reported that Social Services and Urban Development Minister Obie Wilchcombe acknowledged that the complaints of the public servants are “legitimate”.
Mr Wilchcombe had said he was working to ensure the staff of his ministry have a “great Christmas”.
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