5 days ago
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The Jhawn Gamboa matter is not the only thing under the PSU’s microscope. According to the PSU President, Dean Flowers, there have been numerous complaints from within the Ministry of Transportation as they relate to CEO Chester Williams behaviour. In an interview with Love News, Flowers has called on CEO Williams to essentially, back off.
Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union: “And I want to call on the CEO to stop disenfranchising public officers within his department. He would have also done so when he would have hired a transport officer in Belmopan. And I have a lot of respect for that transport officer as well because I think he was an excellent transport officer when he was employed with the Belmopan City Council, but he was hired as a transport officer under CEO Williams without following the proper procedure. There was no vacancy and it is as a result of his employment that I would have gotten wind of the vacancies because then the officers said that that they just got a copy of…. some officers got a copy of the publication of the vacancy notice when in fact that officer was hired without an interview and without following the established processes and the department currently, in my opinion, is being treated as if the CEO still consider himself a Commissioner of Police whereby he promotes who he wants and pretty much does what he wants in terms of promotions and employment of certain ranks of officers. That is my honest opinion and it’s not personal of course between me and the CEO I mean we have a respectful working relationship, we have a professional working relationship but we have to speak truth to power and we have to be open and honest and we have to be also open to correction and I hope that he would be open to correction and he would not take my criticism personally or my commentary personally. But it must be stated that he failed to properly inform every single officer within his department and to provide every single officer with a copy of that vacancy notice because several officers would have complained that they did not see and several officers would have said even when they saw it they did not know whether they should apply because nowhere in the vacancy says that they needed to have “x” amount of years at a lower rank to be able to be considered at a higher rank. And it is alleged by some officers that they were even told plainly in meetings don’t even bother wasting time and applying because those positions will be filled by persons from outside the department. Those are some serious allegations which are also being made against the CEO.”
A third matter brought up by the union are the multiple reports that the current Deputy Chief Transport Officer Peter Williams is slowly being pushed out of the ministry.
Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union: “The matter of the sidelining of the current Deputy Chief Transport Officer who is the most experienced and the most knowledgeable transport officer or transport professional in that department and I think the Belizean people can attest to that. And I want to say that it is really unfortunate when you hear that a professional such as Mr. William is being sidelined by the current CTO and chief executive officer. And for them to say that they’re not sidelining him is untrue. It is not the truth. The gentleman is being sidelined. And these allegations are coming from the transport wardens, from the transport officers, from the administrative staff who are saying that they’ve been instructed that once the CTO is not there, if the CTO is on vacation, they should not send anything to the Deputy Chief Transport officer who is holding over and they should hold off on all those submissions until the CTO returns. Senior officers are being told when it comes to operations and so on not to communicate with the deputy. As a matter of fact it is my understanding that enforcement and operations is happening under the auspices of the legal counsel imagine. What is the legal counsel and the chief executive officer have to do with it with conducting enforcement and operations on the road. That is left for the deputy following instructions from the chief in terms of how they will operationalize the department. So to suggest or to say to the Belizean people that you have not sidelined the Deputy Chief Transport Officer is certainly not true and I would hope and pray that the minister can intervene, have a sit down with these officers across at every level to ascertain what’s happening within the Department of Transport because I’m really not pleased with the many allegations that are currently flooding my inbox and my WhatsApp.”
It is to be noted that CEO Chester Williams did indicate that this was not the case. and that Williams is an asset to the Department of Transport./
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