By TANEKA THOMPSON 

Tribune News Editor

tmthompson@tribunemedia.net

FIFTEEN workers who were hired on a three-month contract at the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation were let go yesterday after their contracts expired, The Tribune understands.

According to a well-placed source in the Minnis administration, the workers were Progressive Liberal Party “operatives” all hired just before the May 10 general election.

The source said the workers were not fired, but the Minnis administration decided to let them go once their contracts ended.

The Tribune was told some of the workers were upset and were seen crying at the property.

BAIC Executive Chairman Miriam Emmanuel did not comment when contacted yesterday.

This is not the first-time workers hired by the former government have been let go, as the Minnis administration is focused on reducing recurrent expenditure and unnecessary costs.

In early August, the Ministry of Tourism made 11 workers in Grand Bahama redundant. About two weeks earlier the ministry reduced its staff count of employees abroad by 12 as part of a restructuring exercise.

And in late June, Minister of Public Service and National Insurance Brensil Rolle said 21 workers at the National Insurance Board (NIB) would be terminated, as their contractual agreements were set to expire in the following days.

At the time, he said the group was a part of the former Christie administration’s pre-election hires, adding that they were engaged about eight to 12 months ahead of the May 10 election.

He also revealed in June that officials were looking into the files of 1,700 persons who were on contract.

Last month, Minister of Finance K Peter Turnquest told this newspaper the public sector has been “burdened” with people with “legitimate expectations,” adding the Minnis administration will “unfortunately” have to address the problem.

“Our hope is to regularise as many of the contract workers as we can into the system,” he said at the time. “It’s unfair for them to be hanging out there with no real safety and security as to their employment going forward.

“By the same token, we recognise that we will have to rationalise the public service. We cannot burden the Bahamian people with resources that we already have and that we may not need. That’s all part of this process we are going through, (finding the) right size of government. We have to figure out how we can reallocate some of that human resource. To the extent that we have excess capacity then we are going to have to deal with that,” Mr Turnquest said.