The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

A trade union president is challenging the explanation given by Bahamas Customs’ top official for why overtime and transportation payments due to officers have been delayed.

Deron Brooks, head of the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union (BCIAWU), said that while Ralph Munroe, the agency’s comptroller, attributed the hold-up and backlog to “staff constraints” in the accounts department during a recent television interview, the union was previously told that “errors in billing and verifying the authenticity of the bills” submitted by officers was the reason.

“The concern was with comments made by the Comptroller as it relates to the reason for the delay in payments being that the accounts section was short staffed,” Mr Brooks said. “That is not the reason that was listed last year when the union made inquiries as to why the payments are behind in the Customs Department.

“The union would have made several attempts to meet with the Comptroller as it relates to that and, as a result of him not meeting with us, we had to refer to the financial secretary [Simon Wilson] and the permanent secretary [in the Ministry of Finance].

“And at that meeting there was no mention made of shortages in staff as being the reason why Customs was not being paid overtime and transportation reimbursements. The reason given, in a nutshell, was errors in billing and verifying the authenticity of the bills themselves,” Mr Brooks continued.

“The union felt that should not have been a reason to have such a backlog because our contention was, for instance, if there are ten persons on a bill and you have an issue with one person submitting payments for hours you feel they didn’t work, or not the amount that they’re claiming for, then remove that one person from the equation and pay the other nine persons.

“The whole department should have not been held hostage because you had to investigate several billing inconsistencies or queries. That was our contention. Now, it is my understanding that the same amount of persons that was in the Customs accounting section from 2016 is the same amount of persons that’s in there today. So the question has to be asked why they weren’t being paid? What is the issue when there was no issue back then?”

Mr Brooks said Customs officers wanted to be at least part-paid what they were owed before Christmas but this did not happen. However, he confirmed that two months’ worth of overtime payments should reach employees this week. The union president alleged officers are owed both transportation and overtime dating back to last summer.

“We met with the financial secretary and the permanent secretary on several issues, which would be issues relative to promotions, work conditions, outstanding overtime and transportation fees and other issues,” Mr Brooks said. “That would have been Friday, August 16. And as a certain amount of time had elapsed where there were no payments in either department, the membership was very patient.

“But coming into the Christmas season and people have financial obligations. They see the comptroller say that this is the most revenue that was ever collected in the history of the country, but yet they can’t get paid. The union made representation on their behalf to try to see if some payments can be made prior to or in time for Christmas. 

“But as it stands now, two months are going to be paid for both departments. I think that would be May and June for Customs, and I think August and September for Immigration. That’s what’s being paid. That’s what’s going to be paid this week. “Not transportation, just overtime. We can confirm that there are going to be overtime payments this week. ”

Mr Brooks added that once those two months worth of payments are given, employees “fear that it’s going to be another three or four months before they get another payment”.

“Customs has up to October keyed in the system,” Mr Brooks said. “So it is only the stroke of a pen for them to authorise it for them to be paid up to-date. So once they pay this two months, there’s the fear that it’s going to be another three or four months before they get another payment.

“We were asking for a payment schedule so that you could tell persons, ‘okay, expect to get this on this day’, and then they could work towards that or they could  pretty much be at ease or figure, okay, they’re being reasonably responded to.

“But when you don’t tell them anything and time elapses, and you still ask them to work these hours with no end in sight, they would feel a certain type of way because you’re still asking them to work. They don’t just show up to work. They have to be asked to work,” Mr Brooks continued.

“They don’t just haphazardly just work. No, the supervisor ask you to work. You have to be authorised, requested to work, and then once you agree, you show up and then you expect to be paid. So we don’t know why the comptroller would say the problem is a short staffing in the accounts section when that is not the reason that was listed at the August 16 meeting.”