‘Oversized’ public service worries residents- Doug Wheatley
Some residents now feel that something should be done with the oversized public service that has been taking a “sizable chunk” of the budget on a yearly basis.
Speaking on the 3-D Show on ZBVI 780 AM on Friday February 11, 2017 host Doug Wheatley said some people came to him to voice some of their concerns as it relates to the governing of the territory, and the oversized public service was a worry for them.
Is there enough work for eight hours?
“They feel like the civil service is oversized, and they feel that there are too many persons in all of these government offices and wondering if really there is enough work to keep all of them busy all the time. Or whether there is only enough work to keep them busy for four hours or five hours and the other three or whatever the number is they don’t really have anything to do?” he asked.
Mr Wheatley stated that the people believe that there should be another way to handle the too large-a- public service in the Virgin Islands (UK).
“…And yet the cost of the public service is very high, the operations of government take a sizeable chunk out of the budget of the country and there are wondering if there is another way that can be handled rather than having such a large public service?”
The public service is made up of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Communications and Works, Ministry of Health and Social Development, Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour, Ministry of Finance, Premier’s Office and Governor’s Office/ Deputy Governor’s Office.
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22 Responses to “‘Oversized’ public service worries residents- Doug Wheatley”
There are some excellent public servants who turn up on time, do their jobs and are a credit to the Government.
Unfortunately, there are many many many more that are not doing a good job, spend the day on the internet or their phone, and seem to think that their function in life is to be rude, surly, self important and to find reasons to prevent the general public from getting on with life and business.
We need to introduce a time limit on every application that is made to the Gov't. If it is not processed (either granted or rejected) within that time, then it must be presumed to have been granted and a de-credit recorded on the employment file of the particular public servant responsible and his immediate superior.
In most parts of the English world, employees of the government are referred to as civil servants. We use the term 'public' instead of 'civil' because our so many of our Government employees are rarely civil. Perhaps the Gov't need to remind its staff to be civil and to remember that they are the people's servants (and thus there to serve the people) Until that happens we should drop the word 'servants' and 'service' and replace it with 'leaches' so that we accurately describe the public leaches that our taxes pay.
Let's start with PWD. Most of those negros do nothing but sit on their a$&e$ all day, while our roads continue to fall apart, bushes grow wild, you name it. What a useless department.
This is the big question. To determine if the civil service is bloated, the size of the service should benchmarked against other regional locales and other places of similar size. Assuming that the service is larger than locales of similar size, what action, if any, will be taken to right size the service? What carries the day? A good business decision or politics?
Moreover, to reduce the government workforce, will require diversifying the economy and creating more jobs. Diversifying the economic base and creating more jobs is a heavy lift but a lift that must be made. Economic diversification and job creation must be part of every political party platform.
We all know Tolians cannot leave here and work in the Civil Service in any of the other Islands.
We have to cut back. The private sector has lots of jobs. These are pension jobs and should be
For locals. In fact some of them have 3 jobs anyway. Lol.