Government moves to make 200 public officers ‘legal’

The posts of nearly 200 public servants were created in breach of public service rules under the Democratic Labour Party, Attorney General Dale Marshall has disclosed, while giving the assurances their jobs are safe.

He said that the previous administration unlawfully created over 300 posts in the Public Service over its decade-long span.

Currently 183 public officers are still working in those positions, in breach of the law, he told Parliament during debate on a resolution of the Public Service (General) Order to establish the posts.

Marshall said between 2009 and May 2018, 328 such posts were created by the DLP.

But those officers are not now eligible to be appointed permanently owing to the illegality of their jobs, he said.

He told the House: “We are here today to put wrong things right for those people. One hundred and eighty-three individuals are sitting in posts today that have no standing in law to exist and that is what we are fixing, to give those people an opportunity now to be appointed because those posts are today being established,” Marshall said.

The Attorney General referred to the Government’s own appointment of a second deputy police chief, later discovered to have been in breach of the Police Act. In the face of Opposition criticism, Marshall swiftly moved to regularise the appointment of Deputy Commissioner of Police Oral Williams.

But Marshall said legislation would in turn be passed to make the 183 positions legal and promised those public servants would not be victimized.

He contended it was ironic that while the DLP made much noise about the decision to appoint Williams, the party was in fact guilty of doing much worse.

He explained that temporary posts created in the Public Service could last up to three years, but could be extended for a further three years. At the end of that extension the post either had to be created or removed.

But, the AG charged that the DLP created those posts but never extended them.

Marshall said some of those posts created were foreign service officer, system analyst and programmer, information technology officer, financial controller, prison officer and network administrator.

The Attorney General said: “As we investigated the dealings between 2009 and 2018 in relation to the public service, we discovered in fact that there were a large number of illegal posts in the public service occupied by good and solid public servants who were going to work every single day and carrying out their duties.

“This administration is charged and vilified for doing all kinds of things in relation to a single post…but between 2009 and 2018, 328 posts were created, all of which are yet to be established. And of those posts, 183 are over six years old and therefore are being occupied by individuals in breach of the statute.”

He maintained that those public servants need not worry, as Government was prepared “to make wrong things right”.

He also gave an assurance that Government would not use the situation as a way of sending home public servants.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb