The Tribune

LAST MONTH, after The Tribune reported a two-day sick-out in the NIB’s National Prescription Drug Plan department, Public Relations Minister Pandora Butler denied that such an event had ever taken place. In fact, she claimed that despite our reports, morale at NIB was not at a low, rather it was “on a sharp incline”.

Ms Butler said that The Tribune’s January 18 report was not true, because no grievances were expressed to management, and more importantly there were no complaints from the union — one of the very things that staff were then grumbling about. It is understood that at NIB under the Algernon Cargill regime, the union was always rumbling, but now that staff needed help, the leaders of the very union that they relied on to fight for their rights, had suddenly lost their collective tongues. Obviously, allegiance to party was more important than fair treatment of their members.

Ms Butler pointed out that staff are allowed two days off from work before having to present a sick slip. “No one in the referenced department has exceeded two sick days off without the supporting medical certificate,” she said. Apparently this was true. But what is also true is that eight members of the department stayed at home on January 17 and 18. We understand that they were not sick. They were protesting. In fact, we understand that the senior NIB person in charge of registration, who was assigned to train two of the three persons recently hired, went home early on the afternoon of January 16th when she discovered that she was training one of those persons to take her position. The sick-out followed over the next two days.

“The new hires for the National Prescription Drug Plan, ” explained Ms Butler in refuting The Tribune’s January 18 report, “were brought on as temporary workers, which is not at all unusual. NIB sometimes determines, because of the nature of our operations that assistance is needed for the performance of temporary jobs. In such cases, persons are engaged, but they occupy no position in either the PMU or UPO bargaining unit. That means they hold no specific positions and carry no job title.”

However, we continue to hear of a purge going on behind the scenes as long-serving staff are shifted to other departments not only because of the questions they have raised about the lack of qualifications of the new “hires”, but because, it is claimed, that one of them has his job because he is the cousin of Minister Shane Gibson. It is understood that he was brought in as the assistant manager of the Prescription Drug department. As a result of the persistent rumours, we decided to revisit the scene and try to discover for ourselves how high “the incline of morale”, of which Ms Butler boasted, had climbed. We have discovered that at no point was there an improvement in morale. In fact Ms Butler had glossed over a very unhappy and unfair situation now taking place at NIB.

The story starts with the three new “hires” — as Ms Butler called them. When they were hired, without reference to anyone in the department, they came in with “assigned positions.”

It was after the “sick-out” and protest that there was a shifting of the gears. All of a sudden, the “assigned positions” were now called — as Ms Butler later told our reporter — “temporary employees”.

It is understood that the department to which they were being assigned had not been informed and the head of that department had not been given an opportunity to interview them. Apparently, sometime ago, it was mentioned that more staff were needed in the Nassau Prescription Drug Plan department. Over time, staff were brought from other areas of NIB to fill the need. It was expected that if more were needed the positions would be advertised internally so that current NIB staff would have first choice to fill whatever vacancy there might have been. This was not done. Hence the grievance — particularly when it was found that none of the new “hires” had the qualifications for the positions to which they were being assigned. Although NIB staff have been told that they need a Bachelor’s degree for certain positions, it is claimed that of the three new “hires” two of them only have high school diplomas. One of them was the manager of a nightclub — Club Space — now closed.

Of course, today’s chatter at NIB is the money that now has to be spent to train these new “hires”.

“Of course, we all have to attend the sessions,” commented one cynic, “just to make it look good, but it is really just for these three.”

Advanced Integrated Systems from Jamaica, which was responsible for putting together the current drug plan, sent in two persons on Sunday to start training sessions yesterday morning. These sessions will last until Thursday. Then there is the senior American pharmacist who also arrived on Sunday for training sessions through to Friday. Also the former project manager who implemented the drug plan, arrives on Wednesday from Trinidad and will be here until the weekend, also for special training sessions.

However, we gather that many staff are upset at how badly the head of this department has been treated. Described as “one of the best employees they have at NIB,” this staff member was abruptly notified that she was to be removed as head of the department, to another position in NIB.

This woman, said a staff member, and another lady in the same department, who were the only ones on the implementation team, and are well qualified and experienced in their positions, are being transferred. The head of department was given notice of her transfer on Friday. No reasons were given. However, on the sip-sip grapevine it is being said that she is being accused of being the “whistleblower” to the press about the employment of the Minister’s cousin and the other two employees, who staff do not believe are qualified for these senior positions. However, being in the news business and knowing how we found out about the mismanagement of this department, we can tell the Minister that he is persecuting the wrong person.

We wonder if this were the Minister’s private business and these were his personal funds, if he would use non professionals to manage them. Bahamians, these are your savings. You should insist that NIB be investigated, and put under qualified management.