BOSS won’t trim wage bill – Drakes

BOSS (Barbados Optional Savings Scheme) – the Government’s bonds-for-cash scheme – won’t go far enough to lighten the burdensome wage bill, Opposition Senator Crystal Drakes has cautioned

And the economist-politician has suggested that now is the ideal time for Government to look seriously at fully reforming the public sector.

During debate on the Barbados Optional Savings Scheme Bill 2020 in the Upper House, Senator Drakes said that for too long successive governments have debated the limitations of the public sector, yet have done very little to make substantive changes to its structure.

She asked: “Why have we not been able to resolve the issue of not being able to afford our public sector wage bill? Because it is not politically favourable, it does not give you any political points.

“We have a notion that more often than not, the public service is used as an employment bureau, so we now have one in terms of size and structure that is inefficient and obsolete.

“For me, if COVID-19 does not make us face our reality, and have a mature conversation about restructuring the public sector, we will keep robbing ourselves of future prosperity when we ignore the underlying problems we have, and BOSS does not address this.

“When you think of the words “public servant”, what do you think of? Someone who reacts, who answers, “yes, sir”, “no, sir?” Do we still need that? When we go forward do we need a public or civil service given by our colonial masters, or do we need to birth something new coming out of this current situation?

“I do not want that somebody is standing in this Chamber, 15 years from now, having the same conversations that we had in Parliament 30 years before.

“We cannot be spending this kind of money in tertiary education just to stay still, to find comfort in politicising something that clearly needs change, but because we want to do things for our own selfish gain we keep things the same.”

Turning to the BOSS programme, Senator Drakes expressed the hope that the monies used to generate the capital works would go towards their intended target and questioned just how much the construction firms carrying out the projects would earn.

She said: “Does anyone know the anticipated rate of return for the businesses that will carry out all this capital work? We are telling public sector workers five per cent is a good deal because the bank isn’t giving you anything, but it is only fair that if I am only getting five per cent and my money will be driving their activity, what is their anticipated rate of return?

“I would hate to think that public sector workers will take the risk and make the sacrifice and then someone else runs off with all the sweets.”

Beyond that, Senator Drakes queried: “Will there be any oversight committee based on what we are facing for these capital works funds? Will the tenders and contracts be publicly vetted?

“If you are asking people to make this type of sacrifice, bear in mind that all too often money is allocated, projects are started and three years later where a building is supposed to stand, there is grass.

“So if these companies are going to be doing all these works, who will be held accountable if these projects are not completed as promised?”

She stated that one of her reservations about BOSS was that she was not certain it would achieve its goals under the current circumstances.

Senator Drakes continued: “We are trying to use a conventional policy in an extremely unique economic situation where two-thirds of our foreign exchange earnings are cut off. We used to see 20,000 seats coming in the island per week, now we are looking at 2,000, so the situation is very different.

“When you speak of capital works projects money goes to two places primarily, wages for workers who then consume goods and services, and profits for construction companies and other associated firms.

“But the problem is that on the wages side, when goods and services are consumed, 80 per cent of each dollar spent in Barbados goes into imports, and on the profit side, none of the firms engaging in these capital works are innovators or seem willing to reinvest in any innovative projects, and that is the trajectory we know.

“And given the fact that tourism is cut off to the point that we are blinded as to when it will return, we have to be cautious how we spend capital works money.”