Hiring freeze on as government probes $20M salary error
The government has announced a hiring freeze and travel restrictions for public service workers as part of its measures to cut costs, and as it investigates a $20 million salary discrepancy found in this year’s budget.
Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr Natalio Wheatley, announced the measures in the House of Assembly (HOA) last Friday, August 16.
According to the Premier, the issue arose from a new salary structure implemented this year. Some $11.7 million for the changes. However, upon review, the Ministry of Finance identified a significant difference between the budgeted amount and the actual amount needed.
”The analysis revealed that there was a significant variance between the funding required for personal emoluments (salaries) for the current officers,” Dr Wheatley explained.
The Premier sad that the Ministry of Finance calculated the actual cost of salaries for existing public officers to be $25,056,518 as of April 15, 2024. He said this meant a shortfall of $13.3 million compared to the budgeted amount for that period. Opposition lawmakers said officials within the ministry placed the figure closer to $20 million for the entire year.
Investigation launched
Dr Wheatley attributed the discrepancy to ”problematic assumptions” which he said were made during the compensation review process. He revealed that an investigation will be conducted ”into the circumstances which led to this wide variance.”
Premier Wheatley said the “very wide variance” caused great concern for himself and the HOA, which approved the budget and announced that Governor Daniel Pruce approved the investigation.
“I’ve made a request to the gvernor, who is constitutionally responsible for the terms and conditions of employment of public officers, for an investigation into the circumstances which led to this wide variance and the governor has agreed for this investigation to be conducted,” the Premier said.
Measures to address shortfall
To close the budget gap, the government has frozen non-essential hiring, restricted non-essential travel for government employees, and advanced the implementation of a contributory pension scheme.
The Premier further advised that he would establish a committee to develop and consider proposals for revenue-raising initiatives and cost-saving measures. The government is also exploring ways to generate additional revenue, including reviewing fees charged by various departments.
Additionally, the government is proposing legislative changes to make the BVI more attractive to maritime businesses. These changes aim to increase maritime traffic by encouraging more vessels to visit and stay longer in BVI waters.
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These people who made such a massive error in calculating some pretty basic computations are the same ones who are now insisting on going forward with the Beef Island runway extension project without the need for the vaunted “business case” that was supposed to be utilized to assess the project’s financial underpinnings. God help the BVI.
Let’s fire 60% of public employees and sit back and see whether service gets better or worse. If it gets worse, fire some more until those left start working harder.
One of the Orlando Smith adminsitrations commissioned an efficiency study some years past. The final report was never made public. However, if memory serves, it was reported that the executive summary stated that there was a surfeit of about 35% in labor to conduct the stated government functions. More recently, based on head counts, it turns out that something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 Belongers are government employees, which number some 4,000. There is also the question as to whether the high salaries and benefits paid to the executive council represent value to the public.
Good point.
As the article said “The government is also exploring ways to generate additional revenue, including reviewing fees charged by various departments”
Does this mean that for salaries of Government workers to go up, the tax payers now have to pay increased fees for the same services?
Then these workers just sit there and go for 2 hours lunch or time off every day. No proper customer service to the public. How is this fair?
I thought a review was done a few years ago which identified that Government was overstaffed? Man the things that make you go hmmmm.
front running the news, gross negligence or an error, lets see what the UK investigators find.
very incompetent people
What a thing to tell the King in the coming days I always had this gut feeling that s**t like this was going to happen.This boi is not ready for leadership now you who chose this live with it.King Charles please come now, today not tomorrow.
Well – how about using that $7K Small Business Grant idea to pay some people?
OR – Some of that Airport Consultant Expansion money that keeps getting spent?
AND MAYBE – BVI Tourism isn’t doing anything with they money, so looks like that might be useful?
At least these people have already been doing the work! We should pay them!
With all the Traveling up and down and the lackys they walk with. Is it really surprising? I am sure that as usual these funds were being dipped into excessively to fund travel and other expenses.
If not this then Gov need’s to take a look at the ridiculously high salaries they are already paying persons in top management positions. If a person is already making over 60/70k a year they already more than well off. They do not need an increase as well. Give that to the staff that barely making 2000 a month. You cant be feeding the fat kids even more. Make it make sense man
wow premier & minister of finance. errors happen we understand what an accident is but I have to say if you didnt spend so much then you might not have to do these belt tightening efforts to raise money.
& p.s please dont mess with the small business grants right before the tourist season.
It’s a good thing that Sherrie already got in her all expense paid Paris trip/vacation. Of course we needed her present at the Olympics to keep a very careful eye on our athletes (sarcasm).
On a serious note, too much money is being wasted on nonessential travel, parties, etc with no accountability. What seems interesting is that the cost of the traveling, music fest, etc seems to be a secret. I would like to know why the official cost of these events are rarely ever reported to the taxpayers.
Of course her presence was needed for him to him( wink wink) Sharie for one does nothing apart from travelling and photo ops. She and her sidekick are so often on a plane and no results for it. It’s a sad affair with politicians and unnecessary spending.
I was wondering if anyone would mention her trip. Seems she was over there forever on our dime! Someone needs to tell us how much it cost us for her to be there and let us know the benefits. I am not saying she should not go but seems she was there for weeks!
And:
– Freeze non-essential hiring
– Restrict non-essential travel for government employees, and
– Advance the implementation of a contributory pension scheme.
All of this should have been done years ago!!!
EError my as! Another trick tofool the people. That. meoney is probably done sitting in an institution some where with a number for a name. Don’t forget who trained himehh.
Maybe freeze ALL government expenses for the last 4 months of 2024!
we need change our name from BVI to SMH. I find i does be shaking my head a lot for this government. WOW
I guess we do
Only now this loan to fix up our infrastructure get f*** what they going to say when they realize is like we can’t even count so how we going to manage and pay back 100M
Another gesture as to why no increments.
Unless the error occurred by the other ministries and departments then the ministry of finance is at fault. We will await the findings. Although that should have been caught by the final signatories of the amount and who might those be. Stop blaming the Governor.