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Johnny and Patrick better talk to us, says PSU

HeadlineJohnny and Patrick better talk to us, says PSU

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Oct. 29, 2020– The Public Service Union (PSU) has publicly expressed its discontent with the aspiring leaders of the two major political parties for refusing to engage in a discussion on the size of the monthly wage bill paid by the Government to public servants.

“Both leaders have declared that they intend to reduce the wage bill, which means that some public officers will lose their jobs,” said president of the PSU, Gerald Henry.

 A Joint Union Committee sent a letter on behalf of the union to UDP leader Patrick Faber and PUP leader John Briceño, inviting them to discuss how they would manage the wage bill if either one of their parties is elected to form the next administration.

The PUP has since agreed to meet with the union, but no response has come from the Faber camp as yet.

Both Briceño and Faber have hinted about the inevitability of reducing the wage bill by way of retrenchment. Briceño pointed out that the jobs of public servants who have been in the system for years would be secured, but wasted no time in saying that the “hangers-on” hired by the UDP were unaffordable.

“We need to find approximately 45 million dollars a month to be able to pay salaries, and tough decisions will have to be made once we get into government,” he said.

Faber said that if their assessment shows an overcrowded public service, some of those persons would have to be “shifted” from the public sector to the private sector.

While he alluded to some job creation efforts to facilitate this shift, he agreed that it would have to be planned and done in conjunction with a recovery plan.

Faber said, “This is not something that we can sustain, and I would be disingenuous to you if I say anything like that; we can’t continue to go down this path irresponsibly.”

The PSU fears that the next government may attempt to reduce the wage bill by cutting the number of employees on the payroll. This means some public servants may be out of a job after the new government’s assessment substantiates the need for retrenchment — a decision the PSU cannot countenance.

“The PSU demands that the current leaders aspiring to become the next Prime Minister must come to the table to discuss how their respective administrations plan to proportionately reduce the wage bill,” a statement issued by the union said.

PSU president Gerald Henry said that, “While the union agrees that the wage bill is high and may very well be unsustainable, our position has been, and remains that before any government takes away any of our jobs, they must ensure that wastage in other areas is minimized.”

Henry pointed out that extravagant spending on high-end vehicles for top government officials and salaries to ingratiated contract officers are some of the major expense leakages from GOB. He said that these contract officers are at the center of the corrupt public service in Belize.

“We have competent, experienced certified public officers, sometimes more than the head of the departments, who can perform the function of these contract officers, but are not given an opportunity to do so because of the corrupt system that currently exists in the public service,” he said.

So, while the PSU agrees that the wage bill is high and unsustainable, they are recommending that the government takes steps to cut unnecessary spending on luxury perks and crony arrangements inside the Ministries.

Recent reports were that the PSU had threatened that its membership would boycott working on election day if their demands were not met, but there has been no official comment on the matter.

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