PM urges gov’t workers to speed up service delivery

Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday expressed sharp disapproval of the work undertaken by some public sector workers, stopping short of calling the group lethargic in their attitude towards service.

Holness, who was speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony for a new housing development in Tivoli Gardens called Royal Estate, said some government employees work without urgency and without an understanding of the situation facing vulnerable groups they serve.

Noting that it has taken more than a decade to get to the ground-breaking for the development earmarked for Rasta City in the inner-city community, Holness said that this is unacceptable and, at the same time, disappointing and frustrating for the residents, the majority of whom are minimum-wage earners.

Residents were told since 2007, he said, that some would be the beneficiaries of houses from the development.

“This explains why people lose faith in Government; why they become cynical of Government,” he said, adding that he committed in 2019, following a tour of the community, to get the development going.

“But regardless of how strong and how firm my commitments were, when it becomes the domain of execution, when it becomes the domain of the public bureaucracy, sometimes there is a disconnect between the urgency of getting the projects done and the imperative of complying with the rules,” he said.

Holness said neither of the two could be sacrificed, but noted that it should be done as quickly as possible so that persons living in “substandard” conditions get the benefit in a fair enough time.

CULTURE CHANGE NEEDED

“Sometimes as bureaucrats and administrators, we do our jobs without seeing the beneficiary on the other side of our effort. We believe that the longer it takes, the better it is. It is a culture in the Jamaican bureaucracy that we must eliminate,” the prime minister asserted.

“It should never take four years to break ground on this project,” he said.

Holness said that there has been heavy discussion about compensation and local salaries.

He said the dominant argument centres on persons thinking only about themselves, their spending power, and their ability to provide for their immediate households.

“What you work for, your job is not only for the necessities of your life, it is for the necessities of all the people that you serve when you do your job better, and when you get paid better, your job is supposed to ensure that every single Jamaican who relies on you to do your job also gets better,” he said.

“The conversation can’t just be about me and my compensation. It must be that the improvement in my compensation will improve my productivity so that the people who live in Rasta City can get their house, too, quickly.

“I am not going to ask pardon for my emotion on this because it is something that I’ve had to be dealing with in the Government – the pace of how we get things done – and it is the conversation that we all want to shy away from,” he added.

The prime minister said that the sustainability of the increases given to public sector workers, following a review of public sector compensation, can only be secured if productivity increases and do so over and above the rate of inflation.

Holness insisted that productivity in the country must increase.

The development is to encompass multi-use units, including commercial and residential.

It is to have 144 housing units, including 130 duplexes and 14 mixed-use units. There are to be 32 studio units, 38 one-bedroom units and 60 two-bedroom units.

It is estimated to cost $2.8 billion and will be constructed on approximately 8.3 acres of land.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com