Despite criticising former PPP/C administrations for subverting the public service through the heavy use of contract workers, the APNU+AFC Coalition government has not only continued the practice but has more than doubled the number of contract workers in some government agencies.
In its Budget Focus 2016, chartered accounting firm Ram and McRae drew attention to the retention of public servants as contracted employees, while noting that the numbers and cost had increased.
The Ministry of the Presidency, it noted, reported an increase in contract employees from 298 in 2015 to 505 in 2016, as well as an increase in the cost of wages and salaries for contract employees from $142M to $798M. The firm said given the revelation of ghost employees under the former administration, a significant reduction in the number of contract employees was expected.
Though several agencies, such as Parliament Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have reduced the number of contract employees, most have increased the numbers.
Significant increases in this line item are noted in the allocation for the Office of the Prime Minister, where the cost of wages and salaries for contracted employees rose from $21M to $82M.
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure also saw an increase from $9M to $51M within its Policy Development and Administration Pro-gramme and from $182M to $533M under its Public Works Programme. The increases under these programmes represent an increase in the number of contract workers from 20 to 38 and 250 to 255, respectively.
According to Ram and McRae, this practice is “not healthy for our democracy and places a strain on Article 38 G of the Constitution which requires the public service to be free from political influence.” “This is not a problem peculiar to the present Administration. The abuse started under the Jagdeo Presidency and continued under the Ramotar Administration. This makes a mockery of the idea of the Public Service Commission and approved appointments, the hallmarks of good human resource management in the public service,” it stressed.
“We sincerely believe that President (David) Granger has the authority to end this abuse. We look to him to act on the matter,” the firm added.
When in opposition, the constituents of the present government had repeatedly condemned the heavy use of contracted workers and went so far as to vow to “strip and dismantle” the contract system for state employees.
Present Attorney-General Basil Williams was reported by Stabroek News as making this declaration in 2013. This action was expected to stop the destruction of security of tenure and undermining of the unions.
Then shadow Minister of Finance Carl Greenidge was reported as saying at the time that at the Office of the President (now Ministry of the Presidency) along with other public service institutions, it had become the norm for persons to be hired on a contractual basis rather than the conventional way of making them full-fledged staff. According to Greenidge, this non-conventional way of hiring employees took away security of tenure and enabled employers to easily terminate anyone who failed to fall in line with the government’s status quo, especially since contracted workers were not represented by unions. Furthermore, he said, this set up had been facilitated by the government’s interference in the functioning of the Public Service Commission, the Appellate Tribunal and the Police Service Commission.
Greenidge opined that the combined effects of these actions had led to the demoralisation of the public service and argued that by extension it caused the many inefficiencies experienced in Guyana.
Greenidge is now Minister of Foreign Affairs. During the recently concluded hearings for the Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service, commissioners had repeatedly been informed by witnesses of the “damage” being done to the public service by the proliferation of contracted workers.
President of the Guyana Public Service Union Patrick Yarde had testified that “contracted employees operate at a disadvantage. Our position is that contract employment should be eliminated. They should go through a process that puts them on the permanent fixed establishment. The public service is a career service in which employees should have security of tenure. The public service needs to be regularised and the contracted services which confuse and disrupt this system should be removed.”
