Minister of Home Affairs, Edmund Hinkson, right, was joined by (second from right) Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Deborah Payne; Deputy Permanent Secretary, Celia Pollard-Jones and Deputy Postmaster General, Iris Lashley, for the service yesterday.
filling gaps
Staff of the Barbados Postal Service (BPS) have been going beyond the call of duty.
With scores of layoffs due to the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme, Minister of Home Affairs, Edmund Hinkson, said that department continues to “make up for the shortage” in their efforts to serve the public.
Marking World Post Day 2019 with a church service at Breath of Life Seventh – Day Adventist Church yesterday, he assured postal workers gathered that their hard work has not gone unnoticed.
“This work is especially recognised over the last year because the Postal Service has had to operate under significant retrenchments, and of course, we regret having to do it… Also, the Postal Service has been unable to fill the positions of those who retired because of the fiscal situation that Barbados has found itself in, and there is no organisation that loses over 80 members of staff – previously close to 600 staff, now at about over 500 – and survive and operates like this,” he said, expressing to the congregation that making the cuts was one of the hardest decisions made by the Mia Mottley-Led Administration.
In fact, recognising the struggles of the Postal Service, which saw the largest staff cuts in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Hinkson also took the opportunity to apologise to Barbadians, especially pensioners who have been inconvenienced.
He noted that the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Andrew, in particular, would have had experienced some dislocation of postal services.
“I know it is difficult for some of those who have suffered the inconvenience of not having their postal services as before on a daily basis. And those who have to see post offices sometimes close at lunchtime, something which has not happened before, but if there is only one postal worker on duty then that person must take lunch at some time,” explained the Home Affairs Minister.
“The Postal Service and the Ministry of Home Affairs will do its best to minimise the dislocation and inconvenience…I am requesting the general public to be understanding as we do our best to provide faster turnaround time as possible, in the delivery of postal services.” (TL)