PROMISE FULFILLED: Minister says govt has lived up to commitment to pay public service workers

BPSU bemoans state of negotiations

“This is the season and sometimes the unions express their disgust to some degree of what is happening”

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Minister of Public Service and National Insurance Brensil Rolle said yesterday that the government has “lived up” to its commitment over outstanding increments, base increases and lump-sum payments to public service workers.

Speaking with reporters ahead of a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Rolle said: “The government of The Bahamas promised the BPSU (Bahamas Public Services Union) that we would deliver to them an increment effective July. We lived up to that commitment.

“Because they are in negotiations, I suspect they may be unhappy, but we lived up to our commitment to provide them for the increment that was lost and to pay them a lump sum.

“We paid public officers who qualified for increments — those that missed their increments in 2020 as well as those who missed their increment in 2021.

“Some individuals are salary-barred, so they did not expect an increment and that’s as far as I know so far.”

Rolle was responding to recent comments by BPSU President Kimsley Ferguson, who has stated that the union is at an impasse with the government as it attempts to settle longstanding issues it has raised concern over, including outstanding increments, base increases and lump-sum payments to workers. 

In August 2019, the Ministry of the Public Services and National Insurance announced that while the BPSU and the government had reached a preliminary agreement over the payment of a lump sum to workers, there were still some outstanding financial issues to be settled.

Under the agreement, the government would pay members of the BPSU an initial lump sum of $800 in the first quarter of the fiscal year and $600 before the end of December.

According to Ferguson, while lump-sum payments were received in 2019, there has not been much progress since then. 

Rolle said yesterday: “We are in negotiations with the BPSU. This is the season and sometimes the unions express their disgust to some degree of what is happening.

“I say to them: ‘The government is totally committed to improving the quality of life for all individuals, including those in the public service’.

“We demonstrated that in this pandemic, where we paid every public officer. They kept their vacations and notwithstanding the fact that we had a shutdown.”