By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE Deputy Prime Minister yesterday said the Government is targeting "ghost" employees and other unethical practices in a bid to trim its wage bill and hit the 10 per cent spending cut goal.

K P Turnquest told Tribune Business that the employee verification exercise, announced by the Public Treasury Department on July 31, was designed to "clean up" the Government's $650 million-plus annual wage bill.

He added that it was also designed to improve public sector efficiency and maximise the Government's resources, matching public service skills to appropriate positions.

"That's exactly right," Mr Turnquest responded, when asked if the "verification exercise" was intended to eliminate corrupt workplace practices, such as employee "double dipping'' and pay cheques being issued to non-existent staffers.

"We're just verifying that we're not paying phantoms," he told Tribune Business. "We want to do our best with this verification exercise so that we can clean up the payroll, and know who we're dealing with and where they are."

Stories of persons collecting more than one salary, and the continued presence on payroll of persons who are either deceased, retired or have left the Government's service, have been rife within the public sector.

There are countless tales of persons who only appear once a month to collect a cheque, or who are just seen "clocking in/clocking out" at the beginning and end of the working day after spending time on another job or in their own business.

Mr Turnquest said he did not want to "presuppose or prejudge" the outcome of the verification exercise, which will last from August 8 to August 31, or what it will yield in terms of potential cost savings for the Government.

"Until we know whom, if any, are included on such a list it's difficult to say," the Deputy Prime Minister said of the potential savings from eradicating "double dipping".

"It's part of the review of expenditure and resources," Mr Turnquest confirmed. "We need to determine what we have in the public service, both in terms of who's available, what skills they have, where they are located, and whether they exist or whether there is any duplication or phantoms in the system.

"This will help identify employees, and make sure they are deployed appropriately. We will go through the process and see what it determines."

The Deputy Prime Minister confirmed the Minnis administration had requested the "verification exercise", although he added that it was "not new" and normally carried out every two years.

All civil servants, whether employed monthly or weekly, have to present themselves and their identification to "designated verification centres" during working hours between 9am and 4pm.

The exercise, which is to last from August 8 to August 31, also applies to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Tourism personnel deployed overseas.

"Persons who fail to present themselves to be verified will have their salary interrupted from September 2017 until such time as they comply with the verification and reinstatement process," the Public Treasury's circular warns.

"It is imperative that you inform all of your officers immediately, wherever they are assigned overseas and in the Bahamas, to present themselves to the designated verification centres within the above time period."

The Government's move sends another signal of its intent to "drain the swamp" and impose discipline on the public sector's spending/costs -- an action prompted by the Bahamas' continuing fiscal crisis.

The Minnis administration, following the Prime Minister's announcement of a 10 per cent "across the board" cut in government spending, likely sees the "verification exercise" as "low hanging fruit" in efforts to achieve its target.

Based on a $2.67 billion recurrent Budget for 2017-2018, the Government's 10 per cent cut implies a savings target of around $267 million. If this target is hit, it would eliminate almost 83 per cent of the projected $323 million deficit, cutting it to $55.4 million.

Mr Turnquest hinted at the coming "verification exercise" over the weekend, stating that change would be "an uncomfortable position" for some persons, but adding that the Government would "certainly try to honour every commitment" it has made with the public sector trade unions.

"We don't believe in padding the civil service to pick up the slack," he told Tribune Business, "so as we find excess capacity we will deal with it.

"Those double dipping or outside the scale of the civil service, we'll have to renegotiate those or take whatever action we have to do to ensure we bring the wage bill back in line."