The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Public Services Union’s (BPSU) president yesterday suggested the Government’s ‘employee verification’ exercise could slash recurrent spending by around $80 million.

John Pinder told Tribune Business he backed the Minnis administration’s efforts to weed out “phantom” workers and other unethical practices in the public sector, listing numerous areas of payroll wastage and “political patronage” that cost Bahamian taxpayers.

“That’s the norm. I welcome that,” the BPSU chief said of the upcoming ‘verification’ move. “They ought to do that to ensure persons being paid are, in fact, working for the Government or at least locate them. They just want to make sure that you are in the public service.”

Highlighting areas where taxpayers lost money, Mr Pinder said “there have been incidents” where civil servants were still being paid their regular salary despite having been convicted and incarcerated in Fox Hill prison.

He added that families had continued to receive the salaries of civil service relatives who were long deceased, while there was a pressing need for the Government to ensure it could locate persons on paid administrative leave - some who had been in that position “for many years”.

“They have persons on the Government’s pay sheet that they can’t locate,” Mr Pinder told Tribune Business. He added while such problems were “not too widespread, they’re sufficient that they need to be addressed”.

Asked how much the Government could potentially save from this effort, he replied: “They may be able to save as much as 3 per cent of recurrent expenditure.”

Based on the $2.67 billion recurrent (fixed cost) Budget for 2017-2018, a 3 per cent saving translates into an $80.1 million spending cut. Should this be achieved, it would leave the Minnis administration almost one-third of the way along the road to its main goal of a 10 per cent cut in total spending.

Mr Pinder suggested there was further room to cut beyond the Government’s ‘employee verification exercise’, identifying several areas he believed were afflicted by excessive salaries, unnecessary hiring and contract excesses.

“I think there are a number of persons that have been re-engaged by the public service that do not have the ability,” the BPSU president told Tribune Business.

“It’s more political patronage, finding a small project they can work on and keeping them there for three years, but it only takes six months.”

Mr Pinder said the Government would also enjoy “a big saving” by allowing persons on short-term contracts to leave once these deals expired, especially if there is little to nothing for them to do.

He also criticised the frequent practice of re-engaging former civil servants, who had retired, at vastly superior salaries to those previously enjoyed.

Mr Pinder said this was against General Orders, which govern the public service’s conduct. “Look at the salaries offered to people who retire and come back; these are much higher than the ones they left on,” he added.

“If you retire and come back, General Orders says you should come back at least two levels below where you were when you left. The Government needs to put more emphasis on succession training, so these persons nearing retirement age can pass over to an understudy when they leave.”

Mr Pinder said the Government could also save taxpayer monies by properly using public sector maintenance staff, and ensure they were provided with the right equipment, as opposed to outsourcing such contracts to the private sector.

“There’s a lot of work being contracted out to the private sector that can be done in the public service,” he told Tribune Business. “The Government has an entire maintenance team in the Ministry of Works that’s not being fully utilised.”

The BPSU chief said that properly using these workers would enable ongoing maintenance of government buildings, potentially reducing the annual summer spend on school repair contracts and such like.

“They also need to invest in some modern equipment that can help the staff with workload,” Mr Pinder said. “There’s a lot of work being outsourced to the private sector because they have better equipment.”

K P Turnquest, the deputy prime minister, confirmed on Wednesday that the employee verification exercise, announced by the Public Treasury Department on July 31, was designed to “clean up” the Government’s $650 million-plus annual wage bill.

He added that it was also designed to improve public sector efficiency and maximise the Government’s resources, matching public service skills to appropriate positions.

“That’s exactly right,” Mr Turnquest responded, when asked if the “verification exercise” was intended to eliminate corrupt workplace practices, such as employee “double dipping’’ and pay cheques being issued to non-existent staffers.

“We’re just verifying that we’re not paying phantoms,” he told Tribune Business. “We want to do our best with this verification exercise so that we can clean up the payroll, and know who we’re dealing with and where they are.

“We need to determine what we have in the public service, both in terms of who’s available, what skills they have, where they are located, and whether they exist or whether there is any duplication or phantoms in the system.

“This will help identify employees, and make sure they are deployed appropriately. We will go through the process and see what it determines.”

All civil servants, whether employed monthly or weekly, have to present themselves and their identification to “designated verification centres” during working hours between 9am and 4pm.

The exercise, which is to last from August 8 to August 31, also applies to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Tourism personnel deployed overseas.

“Persons who fail to present themselves to be verified will have their salary interrupted from September 2017 until such time as they comply with the verification and reinstatement process,” the Public Treasury’s circular warns.

“It is imperative that you inform all of your officers immediately, wherever they are assigned overseas and in the Bahamas, to present themselves to the designated verification centres within the above time period.”

The Government’s move sends another signal of its intent to “drain the swamp” and impose discipline on the public sector’s spending/costs -- an action prompted by the Bahamas’ continuing fiscal crisis.