Prime Minister cries foul
PRIME Minister Mia Amor Mottley is calling foul on what she believes are some underhanded attempts to disrupt Government’s retrenchment exercise.
Speaking to the media after signing a US$100 million loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank at government headquarters on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Mottley expressed her general dissatisfaction with the way the lay-off process has been carried out in the public sector.
According to Prime Minister Mottley, “I am now satisfied that there is an element of sabotage with respect to some aspects of it...and I am not blaming anybody, but I am not blind.”
The prime minister drew reference to a recommendation which was made to lay off some persons from the health sector which she said she vetoed.
“People did not know that I vetoed it because I had been very clear that the basis of the layoffs has to be in areas where we can restructure and repurpose in the way that I spoke just now with modernisation or capital works so that we can find people to get work again.”
“Little did we know that recommendation that was nothing more than a recommendation could find itself circulating on social media yesterday morning (Saturday) as a fact, as a fait accompli. And similarly there have been one or two other instances brought to my attention in the last 24 hours where persons acted without the requisite authority.”
“Suffice it to say, that fret not thyself there will be order and accountability in the Government of Barbados.”
The prime minister acknowledged the legitimacy a memo which also made its rounds on social media from the head of the Civil Service indicating that government will be offering packages to those appointed employees in four categories. She stressed however, that the voluntary retrenchment cannot be offered to everyone since there is limited space to do so.
“Dr. [Kevin]Greenidge and others can tell you that we probably can accommodate 80 to 100 persons. There is a cost to retrenchment. At the end of the day, we recognise that at the same time we are restructuring elements of government, to make it fiscally fit that there may be some people who for all kinds of reasons may want to go home and that we should use this opportunity to be able to make that available to persons as well,” she said. (JH)