‘The public service is broken’- Premier Wheatley
Facing the issue head-on was Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) during the debate of the Virgin Islands Tourist Board Amendment Bill 2024, at the Continuation of the Nineteenth Sitting of the First Session of the Fifth House of Assembly (HoA) on September 20, 2024.
According to Premier Wheatley, his government recognises the areas impacting tourism that need to be fixed.
“We have problems that have to do with the inefficiency of the public service. That is something that we are plagued with as a country. We have to recognise that in a lot of ways the public service is broken. It is broken and it needs to be fixed because it is far less efficient than it needs to be,” Premier Wheatley stated.
Public dissatisfied
The Premier continued that the inefficiency of the public service is revealed in several ways where the public is dissatisfied.
“And we as leaders, obviously we are not the ones who caused the problem but it is our responsibility to fix it.”
Dr Wheatley said he believed the recently passed Public Service Management Bill "will go some ways" in helping the government to fix some of the issues with the public service.
“But there are some other things which need to be done and, in fact, government, all the parties involved, Governor, Deputy Governor, Attorney General’s Chambers, Ministry of Finance, Department Heads, Permanent Secretaries, we all have to get together and have a real heart-to-heart about how we improve the efficiency of government, because we are not delivering public services with the efficiency that we need, so we take that as our responsibility,” Premier Wheatley stated.
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38 Responses to “‘The public service is broken’- Premier Wheatley”
Address the issues of the public service and THEN reward those who need to be rewarded, while also addressing the issue of the unfunded pension scheme! We have increased the salaries for the civil servants - good and bad employees, which has a knock on effect on the annual budget AND an the unfunded budget that still has not been addressed.
Get this fixed and everything else can follow...
SERIOUSLY!
The only way to fix it is to deliver accountability. Send some people home. The others will shape up or bear the consequences. ...but that's not so easy when the public service is the bulk of the electorate.
The BVI electorate has been corrupted into suckling of the government tit for too long. If you can't LEAD and make the difficult decisions, the UK will.
Dr. Hon Premier Natalio Wheatley, is leader of government business and should be taking the lead to fix the broken public service. The public service is yearning to be led.
The public service is the engine that drives government; they are the lifeblood that carries the oxygen of public service. The civil service is targeted and caricatured as a lethargic,,useless, bureaucracy until its service is needed, ie, after a disaster Dogs chase cars but when the cars are caught up with nothing happens..Politicians out of power have the solutions to all problems but in power finds lots of excuses why nothing gets done.
Contracts and accountability are a great first step to tying ministries to long term plans of action.
Step 2: Come up with a plan to fix said problem. Where is it? The proposal to have heart to heart conversation is going to lead to is denial, finger pointing and recriminations.
Start with the basics first in the country.
Get an Audit Team to check each department in efficiency in the departments give them targets and quantify their work.
e.g. Labour proceesed 30 permits per day. Tax chases up un paid taxes.
Lets get the infrastructure fixed for the future.
Fix the roads.
Put the power under the roads,
Put the water under the roads
Put the internet under the roads.
Put sewage under the roads and stop the leaks.
Install Drainage in the roads to stop flooding. Any heavy rain floods flemming street.
Design the Roads for ease of maintenance. e.g Road Sweepers, Mechanical bush cutting not petty contracts. THis is wastful and not managed. We can hardly see the road to my house currently, Cars falling off roads last week.
Forget the Airport Expansion. We have american Direct thats all we need for the time being.
Organize the parking and access to the ferry in Town to avoid the traffic jams.
Get a professional road builder in to build the roads and make sure the asphalt is stuck down.
Once we have the basics like constant electricty, Water, internet then we can then develop other areas.
Lets start with the basics, Keep the people involved in the development and then you will have support for the bigger projects.
But its a start admitting there is an issue