The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is not living up to its obligations to the 33 per cent of Department of Social Services staff who were initially hired via the Unemployment Assistance Programme, the Auditor-General has warned.

Terrance Bastian and his team, in their two-year audit of the Government agency’s New Providence divisions, said 172 of its 515 active employees were still waiting to be ‘regularised’ as full-time public service employees.

Warning that it would be “egregious” for the Government not to alleviate the “continued unease” of these persons over their status, the Auditor-General said the present situation was also impeding their income-earning capabilities.

The audit report, tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday, disclosed that one in every three Department of Social Services staff members has been hired via the Government’s Unemployment Assistance Programme.

This was designed to provide some of the department’s clients with temporary work for three months while they sought full-time employment elsewhere, but this has effectively evolved into full-time jobs for the 172 affected.

“It was disclosed that the majority (70 per cent or 120) of these employees have been employed with the Department of Social Services for five years or more,” the Auditor General’s report reveals.

“It was further revealed that there are employees on this programme who have been in the public service for up to 26 years.”

The Auditor General’s report disclosed that eight persons hired by the Unemployment Assistance Programme had been working for the Department of Social Services for between 21-30 years with no change in status.

A total of $15.937 million in wages has been paid out to the 172 by the Government (Bahamian taxpayers), with almost 50 per cent - 85 - having been hired at the Department of Social Services for at least five years.

“Although the Government’s intention was to legitimately assist these persons with temporary employment, it can be viewed now that these persons have become a part of the public service,” the Auditor General’s report said.

“The result of employing these persons in their various capacities for such a long period of time is that they would now be dependent on their jobs, as they would have planned their livelihoods, including that of their families, around a wage from the Government.

“This reliance places an unspoken obligation by the Government to not only continue to employ those persons, but also to regularise these persons into the public service.”

Suggesting that the continued employment of the 172 showed the Department of Social Services needed the manpower, the Auditor-General pointed to their “willingness” to remain as minimum wage earners “for such long periods of time”.

“It would be egregious to not give serious consideration to alleviating the continued unease of these persons as it relates to their employment status,” the Auditor-General’s report said.

“A further implication associated with this practice by the Department of Social Services is that persons on this programme have been limited to almost no movement in salary for years.

“Their right to basic improvements in their economic conditions would have had to be severely castrated, based on the lack of sustained wages growth.”

Apart from ‘regularising’ the 172 as full-time public service staff, Mr Bastian urged the Department of Social Services to consider “making an allowance for wage restitution for the lack of incremental increases over the years for these employees, taking into account their long and dedicated service to the public service”.

The Government may find this difficult given its financial circumstances, while so-called ‘fiscal hawks’ are likely to question the Department of Social Services’ workforce size, whether staff are giving ‘value for money’, and if temporary hires are designed to keep the jobless figures down.

Among the other revelations from the Auditor-General’s report were:

• The Department of Social Services may be breaching the Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) industrial agreement, given that during the 24 months to end-June 2015, four staff were earning below the minimum wage.

• An unnamed medical provider “submitted a fictitious invoice” and was paid $6,900, even though the Department of Social Services client had died several weeks before - and the same doctor had decided three months’ beforehand that they were “ineligible to receive the procedure”.

Suggesting that the department had been exposed to fraud and corruption, the report said: “It should be noted that from the date of request to the deposit of the payment, 255 days elapsed where no oversight or follow-up occurred to ascertain that this client was not only considered illegible for the service, but also died.”

• When Department of Social Services employees cannot get into an office, or the key has been mislaid, male staff “climb in the ceiling to open office doors for them”.

• The Auditor General’s report calls on the Department of Social Services to set policies for the timely delivery of medical assistance to clients, as delays “may compromise the health and wellbeing of their clients”.