Dear Christine,
I AM a concerned civil servant.
For many years, public servants have been experiencing difficulties with salaries, overtime payments and travel allowances.
The current system is that in order to receive a salary if you are temporary, a PSC 5 document must be prepared by the personnel section in which you work, sent to your department head and then sent to the Personnel Administration Division for approval.
Sometimes it takes months before applications are approved, which results in some officers going without a salary for that long period.
The present administration passed a law to ease the workload of those at the approval level. This law has not taken effect, even though it was passed in Parliament some time last year.
There are some officers who have not received salaries for up to four months. When they demand answers, they are treated unfairly.
Management in the personnel sections responsible for the execution of these functions refuse to answer the telephones so as to avoid questions raised about authorities.
I think it is unfair to us civil servants to go through months of waiting for a salary. In addition, when officers become too sick to work and possibly have “too many sick days”, the money is deducted from their salaries without any arrangement between the employee and the accounts section.
It is now mandatory that the accounts section determine the amount of money that the officer can pay back monthly, rather than liaising with the employee to determine a suitable and manageable monthly deduction.
It also appears that several officers of my department are in Hollywood. This simply means that officers have been acting for years without any permanent appointments.
If these officers are not appointed in one post but acting in another, the same process of receiving authorities has to be endured. They are paid at the lower post without receiving any acting allowance in a timely manner, simply because some manager says they are still being paid.
These are just a few of the most unbearable problems that we as public servants face each day. It is not as easy as some people outside of the sector interpret it to be.
Some officers of the public sector would prefer work in the private sector where most of these problems don’t exist or are rare. Someone needs to look into this.
– FRUSTRATED?CIVIL?SERVANT
Dear Frustrated Civil Servant,
You have raised a number of serious human resources issues which need immediate attention. This is not the first time that civil servants who are not appointed in their various posts have complained about the lateness in receiving wages and salaries and of having to act in senior positions without reaping the benefits of doing so in a timely manner.
It is clearly time for Government to revisit these issues. It is an unjust master who would allow his servant to work for extended periods without granting him pay, when all the while the master is able to feast at his table, enjoy the perks of his job, see that his family is fed and his financial commitments are met.
I honestly do not know how people in authority can sleep well at night when others employed in their service do not know where the next meal is coming from, cannot pay their rent or mortgage and cannot adequately support their families.
It is my hope that those in authority would see your letter and realise that the present system is not conducive to good business practices.
I also wonder if the unions that represent civil servants could possibly raise their voices on these unfair business practices.
Something needs to be done as soon as possible.
– CHRISTINE
