Opposition Leader Dr. Denzil Douglas of the St.Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) is promising a change in the payroll system for civil servants of every two weeks instead of the traditional monthly salaries.
“A new Next Gen SKN Government will also ensure that our civil servants will be paid every two weeks to ease the pain of the long wait between salaries. In fact so many of our mothers, so many of our household heads have been saying how difficult it is to wait after the first two weeks in a month in order to be able to have money to do what they have to do for their families.”
Dr. Douglas made the disclosure live on Tuesday 14th January during the weekly edition of ‘Ask The Leader’ aired on KYSS FM.
According to him: “We will implement significant increase in civil servants salaries and pensions to improve their standard of living and this will be done within the first 90 days if not before if taking office.”
Additionally, he spoke about plans for professional development training civil servants.
“We will implement professional mandatory training for our senior civil servants paid for by the various ministries to ensure that they keep abreast of the latest best practices and pioneering technique.”
The opposition leader criticised the present government for negatively impacting the morale of civil servants.
“Over the past five years, there has been a serious decline in the quality and delivery of our public service. This is largely of course due to the nepotistic and the victimising practice of this present regime where the Harris family are in fact seen to be omnipotent because of this, morale of the civil servants is at an all-time low. Efficiency and productivity are at ban all time low and this has had an impact on the ease of doing business here in St.Kitts and Nevis. Our government must become much more transparent, much more accountable, much more responsible and responsive to the needs of our people that it is serving. Our government must show more respect for our public servants as well. We must have leadership that is committed to innovation. We need a government that is open, bold, dedicated and disciplined.”
Speaking about the SKNLP’s vision to make a turnaround in the public service sector, he pointed out that such “must change mindset in some ministries and department to embrace new ideas and more modern best practices as well. For example, there has to be flexi time being incorporated in the hours for public servants here in St.Kitts and Nevis. There is a need for more coordination and dialogue between the ministries that relate to each other.
Dr. Douglas added: “The creation of a next generation public service is a national imperative if St.Kitts and Nevis is to remain competitive and to stay competitive. In order to achieve these things, our next generation to public administration must be more impactful and create a more engaged work force. Happy and engaged public servants mean happy citizens which will bring economic. Social and environmental benefits to n all of our people our country on a whole