The oversized pre-general election campaign signs that screamed “PUP HIRE/UDP FIRE” caused fierce confrontation at the corner of Princess Margaret Drive and Freetown Road, Belize City, between the opposing camps of the then government, the People’s United Party (PUP), who installed the signs, and the then Opposition, the United Democratic Party, who the signs grieved.
And now the issue of termination of government workers is central to the now Opposition, the PUP’s public castigations of the way in which the new administration is handling things at Independence Hill. Specifically, the allegation against the UDP is that its officials have proceeded with mass firings, releasing between 75 and 100 workers from the Ministry of Works.
In these hard economic times, it’s an issue that is sure to attract public attention and concern, but when we asked Prime Minister Dean Barrow about it this evening, he contended that the firings are perfectly in order.
“I will make no apologies,” said Barrow. “When I hear the Minister [of Works, Anthony “Boots” Martinez] saying in PG [Punta Gorda], that the budget and the scope of works only provide for 30 places and there are 70, man, it’s not like he is firing the 40 so he could replace PUPs with UDPs; it is because they are not doing anything except collecting a paycheck. That has to be entirely justified.”
He added that, “In terms of other open vote workers who are losing their jobs so that UDPs can take their places, again, while you must act with a degree of humaneness, man; that is the inexorable law of politics, that’s the inexorable, inevitable consequence of a change of government.
“There are people who for 10 years have not been able to catch a break, because of what’s been happening. We are going to say to them now, man, even with respect to open vote workers … I’m sorry, there will be, as it were, some collateral damage, arising from the fact that we have to try and even out things.
“Man, if even in terms of open vote workers, we can’t do anything to try and level out the situation, or to lean now in favor of people who for ten long years have been in the wilderness; I don’t think we will be worth our mandate.”
But what about those people who did not get jobs because of political ties, we asked Barrow. Could they not have just been deployed elsewhere in the public service?
“No, the easiest way to give people jobs is in the open vote way. There is a shortage of jobs, and shortage of official vacancies,” he argued. He said that the former administration had exploited the open vote system, employing people with “no specialize skills or training.”
We note that while no terminated worker has come to us to share their story, the talk of the firings has been a hot issue in Opposition media.