Early retirement harming the country
A HOST of high ranking public officers are opting for early retirement, a situation the Opposition is concerned will severely impact the country.
Leader of the Opposition, Mia Mottley, raised the issue in the Lower House yesterday morning, as she suggested that the numbers now choosing to retire early are higher than at any other time in our history. Moreover, she told her fellow Members of Parliament that as a result of these early departures, there are some persons who are now acting in positions that are several levels beyond their appointed levels, and she is adamant that Government should be asking why this early exodus is occurring.
“In most instances, Sir, these people are still capable, competent and had much years to go when they left… I say that the notion that all these people could take such early retirement is unacceptable, because it affects the quality of governance,” she said.
Mottley added, “You can have a strong government and a weak public service; you can have a weak government and a strong public service; but if you have a weak government and a weak public service, you have a recipe for implosion and disaster.
“We know that we have a weak government, and we know the public service has been under severe pressure by the extraordinary number of early voluntary retirement that has taken place in the last six, seven years, and therefore, Barbados is reeling under that pressure,” she said.
She said the public service is now characterised by “bedlam and mayhem” from the Sanitation Service Authority to the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA), to the National Conservation Commission, the Transport Board, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, among other government entities.
With that in mind, she drew attention to the BRA, asking the Minister of Finance to indicate how many officers of that agency has chosen to return to Central Government. She made the point as she again said Government should dismiss the idea of integrating the Customs Department into the BRA, an entity that is focused on revenue collection alone.
“The role of Customs goes beyond revenue collection, but includes security and border security in particular. And these people know that when the first notion of a central revenue agency came up – I have the Cabinet paper – that the Barbados Labour Party Government did not intend to carry Customs into the Central Revenue Authority, so they know it would have to be a deliberate policy decision of this Government,” she said.
Meanwhile, she spoke about the long Customs lines at the airport, a problem, she said, which is partly as a result of a shortage of Customs personnel. The Opposition Leader maintains that this situation too has to be addressed as a matter of urgency, as it can have a devastating impact on tourism. (JRT)