The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The deputy prime minister yesterday said the government still has no plans to slash civil service jobs and hopes to "sustain" current staffing levels despite growing fiscal pressures from COVID-19.

K Peter Turnquest, speaking to reporters outside the Cabinet Office, said: "At the moment we still have not made any decisions about the public service and any kind of adjustments there. Hopefully we will be able to sustain our current levels and ensure that people are able to meet their commitments, particularly as it relates to getting back to school and the other commitments that people have."

Turning to the increasing hardship facing many Bahamian families and individuals as the country prepares for its second national lockdown, Mr Turnquest added: "We do anticipate that there are going to be significant adjustments in the family budget that are going to have to be made as a result of this new shutdown.

"As you know we have programmes in place to assist residents as best as possible, either through rental assistance or food assistance. The prime minister would have talked about the food assistance programme and the feeding programme that we have launched, now nationally, and that programme is now feeding thousands of Bahamians and we will continue to do that.

"We are committed to ensuring that nobody goes hungry to the best of our ability. We know that there are wrinkles in the programme that we have to work out and we are working on those," he added.

"Additionally we continue on our programme with respect to income replacement for those persons who are directly affected. National insurance is doing its part in terms of unemployment assistance for those who are having challenges with lay-offs or temporary furloughs and, of course, the Ministry of Finance continues with its support for businesses to ensure we keep as many people employed or paid as possible."

Responding to concerns that the government simply cannot afford to maintain the massive spending propping up the economy with little to no revenue income, Mr Turnquest replied: "We have always said that we had planned for an interim period of lower income to the government and, up to now, we have been tracking pretty much where we expected, which is about 50 percent of our usual revenue for this period.

"Fortunately, this is the slow tourism period. We are not totally off of our mark. The expenditure is elevated as a result of all of the social programmes that we are trying to follow through, but the good news again is that we had budgeted for this.

"So we are more or less where we anticipated we would be and, once we get into the autumn, and if we continue to have lockdowns and our tourism business does not come back, then we will have to start making some new decisions and adjustments, but for the moment we are more or less where we anticipated we would be at this stage."