Barbados Today

It seems as though Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler is not the only one Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell has crossed in recent weeks.

Amid the present demand by the minister for the Governor to step down, the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) has issued a strongly worded statement in response to Worrell’s latest criticisms of the country’s public sector.

In giving his frank assessment of the Government service, Worrell had said it was “completely out of sync” with the “dynamic economy”, too slow to act and that “the running costs of public service exceeded tax and other revenues by a wide margin”.

“The majority of public servants are well trained and able and committed to the public good. They do an exceptional job, but too many in the service are inefficient and uninvolved and they treat citizens of this country and our visitors with disrespect,” he said during the Bank’s recently televised economic forum in which he had also warned of the need for more expenditure cuts and for Government to stop printing money.

“The Governor’s comments are indeed unfortunate and he would do well to carefully examine the one source of credible and relatively current date on the subject productivity – a customer satisfaction survey conducted by NISE [National Initiative for Service Excellence] that reveals that many public sector departments scored more favourable results than private sector entities,” the NUPW said in a statement on the matter.

It acknowledged that better could always be done, but said, “The Governor’s ridicule is unfair and misplaced”.

The union also took issue with Government’s to monetary adviser’s suggestion that the Central Bank was printing money every month to pay public servants.

“That is a reflection of how Government chooses to pay its bills, and has nothing to do with the public service,” the NUPW said, while suggesting that the real problem was Government’s inability to budget properly.