PM defends decision to appoint public officers
Prime Minister the Right Honorable Freundel Stuart greeting Members of Cabinet and DLP Members during his entry into DLP Headquarters yesterday.
Prime Minister the Right Honourable Freundel Stuart has made it clear that the decision to appoint all eligible officers in the Public Service who have been continuously employed in temporary positions for three years or more, will add absolutely nothing to the Government’s current wages bill.
In a wide-ranging address to the 61st Annual Conference of the Democratic Labour Party, he told those gathered in the auditorium at the Party’s George Street headquarters where there was standing room only, that the wages bill will not rise as the public officers in question are going to work every day and are already being paid, but he said they lack the security enjoyed by appointed workers.
“…The uncertainty which bedevils the lives of many officers who have been working for years but are not yet appointed, has produced unacceptable levels of alienation, frustration, insecurity and, in some cases, plain disillusionment. Their lives have been put, basically, on hold, since they can transact no business that partakes of other than the very short term and their hopes of upward mobility are cheated of fulfilment,” he said.
Adamant that those workers have the same dreams, the same hopes, the same aspirations as those who are appointed, he put the case for their continued employment. Prime Minister Stuart contended that the fact that they currently function in temporary positions is evidence that they are needed in the Public Service – the said Public Service he has credited with helping Barbados to be successful over the last 50 years of Independence.
But in spite of the contribution made by the Public Service, PM Stuart, who is also Minister of the Civil Service, lamented there is a tendency by Barbadians to take the contribution of the loyal men and women who work for Government for granted.
“When they do not produce at a speed appropriate to our temperament, they become the butt of our unsparing criticism. Yet, without the Public Service, which we have had over the last 50 years, Barbados could not have made the giant strides it was able to make,” he stated.
The Prime Minister added, “Nowhere else in Barbados can there be found as stellar a concentration of intellectual talent. The diversity of skills for a society as small as ours is stunning. Critics may encounter one or two of these skills displayed on the outermost layers of the Service, but very seldom do they have access to those at the core. Nor do they have a chance to see the high quality opinions and advice that are the pleasure of those of us whose privilege it is to work closely with these hardworking patriotic citizens of Barbados at both the higher and lower echelons of the Service.”
But, referring to a 2011 survey done by the National Initiative for Service Excellence, he said there are still some issues that need to be ironed out. According to him, that survey found that 33 per cent of workers in the public sector are disengaged from the job. Noting that the situation is quite similar in the private sector, he said the issue must be further studied since it is a national problem that we must address together. (JRT)
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