Barbados Today

Government is being accused of violating its own rules and customs as it relates to the retirement of public servants who were transferred to the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA).

Independent Senator Sir Roy Trotman Wednesday complained in the Senate that many of these workers were being deprived of their full pensions because of the formula being used to determine their compensation.

“Before their pensions are computed they are then pushed back down to their substantive position in the general service. If they were at $3,000 a month they were taken back down to $2,100 at which their pensions would be computed, when in fact they had been taken up to a higher job. The years that they spent in the BRA were not taken into account,” the retired trade unionist said as he spoke on the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill 2017.

He said this was a clear case of Government “undermining its own rules, its own regulations, its own customs and its own practices [and] it is setting a bad example for other employers”.

Sir Roy sought to absolve the policymakers of blame, charging that the people who made such decisions often did not have the authority to do so.

And he called on Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler to investigate the complaints in an effort to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of the retiring workers.

“Too many people want to show their power but seek to avoid responsibility for their abuse of that said power. I would urge whatever Government agency, in this case the Ministry of Finance, to check out the allegations which have been made here. They have not been made in any bad faith by this speaker. They are made as a result of several presentations and importuning that have been made. In some cases, the people said they have raised those issues before now and they are not getting any traction,” the former general secretary of the Barbados Workers Union stressed.          

Sir Roy also questioned the BRA’s ability to implement the amended legislation, which seeks to raise the threshold of the payment of VAT from $80,000 to $200,000.