Appointments coming soon

Scores, possibly hundreds of temporary public servants are expected to be appointed by March 1, 2018.

Addressing a Democratic Labour Party joint political meeting at Queen’s College on Sunday night, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart disclosed that those to be appointed are from the full spectrum of the public service. He indicated that he received this news during a meeting he had just last Monday with officials from the Ministry of the Civil Service, the Personnel Administration Department and the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to get a status report on Government’s stated policy to appoint persons in the public service who have been working three years or more.

“My heart was gladdened when I was told that every attempt is being made to ensure that all the security guards, quite a large number of them, who have been working for three years or more should get letters making their appointment effective from the first of March. Persons at the clerical officer level, quite a large number of them should do the same; postmen should benefit from the same; prison officers should benefit from the same and I could go on and on and on,” he stated.

His comments came as he noted that while Government is seeking to give these persons security of tenure, bringing “certainty and dignity to their lives”, in some quarters there remain calls for thousands of public servants to be sent home. Prime Minister Stuart made it clear that such calls are falling on deaf ears, and that his Government has no intention to put persons on the breadline, contending that the Government over which he presides “finds the stench of that offensive to its nostrils”.

He maintained, “I do not accept and will never accept that whenever the Barbados economy gets in trouble that the workers are to be the fall guys in this exercise all the time to bring it back to respectability. We have to find other ways to ensure that we can correct our problems. If the workers have done nothing wrong why should they be the victims of all of this?”

He made the point while noting that layoffs are the easy way out, as wages and salaries constitute the second largest area of public expenditure. But, he is adamant that efforts have to be made to find other solutions as he pointed out that the private sector rather than absorbing those laid off workers into their establishments, often use retrenchment in the Public Service as “a signal that they can send home some too”.

“I told the Cabinet last Thursday that when you are faced with difficult challenges we’ve got some choices to make. Every individual, every family, every household, every country has to make the same choice. Are you prepared to die on your feet, or do you prefer to live on our knees?... And as I was told in the Cabinet on Thursday, and I was refreshed by it, we go on our knees to pray, but we’re not living on our knees,” he affirmed.

The Prime Minister gave the audience the assurance that his Government will stand up and fight every circumstance that has to be fought in the interest of the people of Barbados and to make sure that Barbados’ reputation and the country’s standing in the world remains intact. (JRT)