The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A SICKOUT by finance and accounting officers last week will prompt officials to examine the organisational structure of government to ensure no group of employees can hold the state “hostage”, State Minister for the Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle said yesterday.

The Ministry of Finance estimates $7.5m in revenue could be lost after the sickout, which was held from Monday to Friday and has continued this week, but with fewer employees.

“About a week ago this was just unfolding,” Mrs Glover-Rolle told reporters before a Cabinet meeting yesterday. “We didn’t really understand what numbers looked like on that particular day, but by the end of the day we found out it’s about 100 finance officers that would have sat out.

“After the story - and they understood that we probably didn’t know quite why they were sitting out - a few did return so by Friday there were about 70 that were still out. As of yesterday, there are a few still out, but what we have done is asked the permanent secretaries from every ministry to provide a report of what is happening in their ministry in regards to financial officers so those reports are coming in slowly.”

Mrs Glover-Rolle suggested disciplinary action against the employees is unlikely because they obtained sick slips.

“From what we can tell, there’s minimal impact,” she said. “Salaries don’t seem to have been impacted, but special payments would have been impacted, that means deductions or any special payments that employees would have had facilitated through their salaries.

“In terms of how it has impacted the nation, of course finance is a critical part of what we need in running a country so revenue collection would have been impacted and that doesn’t only mean from the perspective of cashiers - because they were finance officers that are sitting out - but in terms of producing purchase orders, allowing the government to collect funds that are due, etc.

“Additionally, we understand that outside of the payments to employees that may have been minimally impacted that some of the finance officers that returned to work are able to facilitate some of the tasks that would have been left out last week. In a time like this where there is a crisis, it provides opportunity, which means we’re now looking at the organisational structure of the government and ensuring that no group of employees is able to hold the government hostage if you want to use that word or put us in a precarious position where there is only a certain number of employees that can facilitate certain tasks,” Mrs Glover-Rolle said yesterday.