T&T Gov't says civil service jobs secure

The government of Trinidad & Tobago has changed its tune on the workers who would lose their jobs when the Customs and Excise and the Board of Inland Revenue close to clear the way for the new Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority.

When government announced the plan to put more than 2,000 workers on the breadline it had said it could not guarantee reemployment for anyone since an independent agency would be responsible for that.

The government plan was to provide a $350 million Voluntary Separation package of $350 million (although there was nothing voluntary about it) with no further guarantees.

In the Senate Tuesday junior Finance Minister Mariano Browne told a different story. He said most of the workers would be employed at the new revenue department with the rest being transferred to other public service jobs.

That was the demand from the Public Services Association (PSA), which represents the workers. The PSA called the government plan a betrayal.

Read the story: Gov't changed the rules

Opposition Senate leader Wade Mark responded to the initial announcement by saying that his parliamentary colleagues would not support legislation to establish the new agency, which was to be operate independent of the public service.

Mark condemned the move, saying it was a government scam to fire workers and increase taxes. He wanted to know where the Government would find the $350 million since it was not included in the budget.

Browne clarified the government's position Tuesday, insisting that the retrenchment of workers was never on the agenda:

“The intention is not to put 2,175 people on the breadline, but to find mechanisms to filter across and to allow the best people to be employed in the new dispensation to fit the new jobs which are being built in this new institution,” he told the Senate.

He was clear that only selected personnel would find work at the new authority.

“It is important that we start afresh, that we look at every employee who is looking and applying for a job in the new institution and we look at him from a zero-based position. That is the basis on which new employees will be migrated", he said.

The million-dollar separation package is still on the agenda. Browne told the senate employees will have the opportunity to accept the Voluntary Separation Programme and also "have the opportunity to avail themselves of the other mechanisms which exist in the public sector—that is, transfers or employment elsewhere. Those options will not be removed.”

He said, “The Government stands ready and committed to live in accordance with the legal principles and to be a good and honest employer. We give that commitment; we will live by that commitment.”

He also confronted charges of bias saying the only option available to Government to deal with that issue is “to ensure that you draw a line and to migrate the employees on the basis of competence , experiential capacities and capabilities.”

Browne said the specifications for the different job positions at the new authority are being developed. “It is unfair to say that the government is putting people on the breadline. That is not true. That is not going to happen and the majority of the people will be re-employed.”