By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

An estimated 2,500 persons in the public service stand to be regularised, according to Labour Minister Shane Gibson, with some workers having been kept in ‘temporary’ status for 23 years.

Mr Gibson made the revelation in the House of Assembly on Monday, as he spoke on the Government’s effort to integrate temporary workers into the pubic service.

“This decision emanated from a long-existing concern over persons who, having reached mandatory retirement age, could not receive the benefits of a pension and gratuity as do the permanent and pensionable officers,” he said.

“These persons experience difficulty in obtaining bank loans that could help improve their living conditions, and lack job security.Some persons have been in a temporary state as far back as 1993.”

Mr Gibson added: “Additionally, in 2002, the government agreed for the employment of 300 workers in the Department of Environmental Health. Many of them still need to be regularised. Further, that department was given authorisation to employ from time to time additional persons for special projects for a period of three months.”

Mr Gibson said that the due to the volume of recommendations for full-time status, and the slow receipt of the required documents, only 847 out of an estimated 2,500 have been received.

Some 179 have been completed, 207 are being actively worked on, and 441 require completion, lacking all the relevant documents.

Mr Gibson described the exercise as being ‘budget neutral’, given that most temporary workers are at the lower end of the wage scale. He also noted that 1,513 persons have retired from the public service during the period May 2012 to December 2016. Some 6,015 persons have been appointed during the same period

The Bahamas Public Service Union’s (BPSU) president, John Pinder, told Tribune Business: “We have been agitating for the past 12 years to have the Government regularise these persons who have been in the public service for many years, and have not been regulrised.

“A number of them started off on contracts. You have persons in the public service who have been in that type of position for more than 20 years. It really places them at a disadvantage when it comes to getting loans and mortgages and that sort of thing.”

He added: “To bring some dignity to them we have been pleading with the government to regularise them. Efforts are being made to conclude that process. Some have been done but there are still hundreds left. I hope that they give consideration to bridging the years of service so those years become pensionable to those persons who have been disadvantaged all these years.”