3 weeks ago
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Government is moving to better manage Belize’s growing public-sector wage bill, which continues to take up a significant portion of the national budget. Speaking on The Morning Show yesterday, Minister of the Public Service Henry Charles Usher acknowledged that spending on salaries continues to increase. He said this is partly due to salary adjustments, the restoration of increments, the opening of new departments and the hiring of employees to support additional government programmes. Usher explained, however, that controlling the wage bill is not simply about reducing the number of public officers. He said the Government is developing a broader human resource strategy to ensure positions across the public service are properly defined and compensated.
Henry Charles Usher, PUP Chairman: “Some of the challenges that we were faced in the public service was we kept spending more than was budgeted in terms of the wage bill. So every year you go through a budget exercise. Part of that budget exercise is to determine what your staff needs are. But during the course of the year, sometimes there are new projects that come in or maybe an under assessment was done in terms of staff needs and so that exercise needed assistance to make sure that we were able to stay within those guidelines. Secondly, there was varied compensation for the same job categories, which is an issue, well I think it’s also in the private sector, but certainly in the public sector it creates a lot of anomalies. One of the overall objectives of this project is equal pay for equal work. If you are doing the same work you should be getting the same pay. But because of different anomalies in the system with increments and when persons come in and maybe they have different levels of education, et cetera, there were areas where persons were being paid differently but doing the same job. That creates animosity between workers. I’m doing the same as you but I’m being paid less than you or vice versa. So that was another area. Number three, we had to look at an integrated HR management system. An integrated HR, digitized HR management system that is in sync communicating with the financial management system, meaning the Smart Stream because those two systems have to be able to work together. Along with that, you have to look at areas like digital security, cyber security, the whole digital process, the digitization of the personnel files for public officers. These are all areas that we’re working on under this project and I’m very happy that we were able to get this thing through the house and to get it approved. Why? Because this will help in terms of the Ministry of Public Service being able to provide services to the recipients of our service, public officers, because MPS is the HR arm of government. So we work on behalf of public officers and we have to be able to provide better services to them when they want to apply for leave, when they want to apply to be transferred to a different post, promotions, etc. These processes will now be digitized. You’ll be able to track your file easier so that at the time when you retire there won’t be these issues where something might be missing from your file and there are delays in you collecting your gratuity or your pension. These are all areas that we’re trying to improve and we’re trying to work towards the system that is the best public service possible.”
Our newsroom understands The strategy includes reviewing job descriptions, qualifications, responsibilities and salary scales. The aim is to determine what each position requires, eliminate inconsistencies and ensure employees performing similar duties are treated fairly across ministries and departments./
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