Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 07, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Governments have two options when it comes to employing workers. The first is to hire them on contracts. The second way is to place them on the pensionable establishment.
In the first case, workers are not entitled to pensions when they retire (not many of them hope to work that long in any event. You are paid a gratuity equivalent to a percentage of your salary in lieu of a pension. In the second case, you are employed by the public service commission and can only be dismissed or disciplined by the body. After 33.3 years you are entitled to a pension; after a certain amount of years, you are entitled to gratuity. You have to retire at 55 years under that system.
The APNU+AFC had been highly critical of the high numbers of workers in the public service who were contracted employees. The APNU+AFC failed to appreciate that contract employment was born during the period of the Hoyte administration when the regime was forced to employ persons on contract because it simply could not attract skilled persons into a low-pay public service.
APNU+AFC made a big fuss about the contract employees under the PPPC. They accused the PPPC of using the system to employ friends, family and political acolytes. The PPPC in rebuttal said that the contract system offered workers a choice – whether to work on contract or on the pensionable system. The APNU+AFC did not buy that argument.
When the APNU+AFC got into office it was different story. They used the very contract system which they had condemned under the PPPC to offer jobs to persons of their choosing. In fact, after the first two budgets, the view of independent analysts was that the numbers of contract employees were higher than it was under the PPPC. So why in the first two years did APNU+AFC not keep their campaign promise to reduce the number of contract employees in the public service? And why are they now moving to place doctors presently on contracts to pensionable employment?
The first two years, the government employed persons of its choosing on contract so that it could have these persons in the system. It put alot of its supporters and persons it favoured for certain jobs in positions. It also got rid of a lot of contract employees who worked under the PPP by terminating their contracts or allowing it to be run its course at the end of which they did not renew the contract. This made way for more contract employees of their choosing.
Doctors are now being asked to move to pensionable employment. Many of the doctors are not going to be interested. They are going to leave. These are different times and professionals are not going to stick around for thirty odd years to receive a pension. Most of them, in any event are waiting on a better offer overseas. When you push them to go onto the pensionable establishment, they will leave faster.
There is another problem though. For any contract employee or new employee to be placed on the pensionable establishment, then the permission of the Public Service Commission has to be sought. The Public Service Commission should refuse to rubber stamp any appointments made either by the PPPC or by the APNU+AFC. They should make it clear that they desire a transparent system. For anyone to be employed in the pensionable establishment, the positions should be advertised and persons should have to apply for the job.
It does not matter how long you were working in the system as a contract employee. Once you came in as a contract employee, you should have to apply and be interviewed for the job. New persons to the job should be similarly treated. There should be a competitive process for all appointments. The Public Service should conduct these interviews and should not rubber stamp employment already decided upon by the political directorate.
This will solve the problem once and for all. Let the Public Service Commission be responsible for all employment of persons on the pensionable establishment.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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