By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The government is planning to freeze all civil service hirings, promotions and salary increases in a bid to limit the size of a potentially massive 2020-2021 fiscal deficit, it was revealed last night.

Kimsley Ferguson, the Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) president, slammed the "very insulting and disrespectful" way that he and other union leaders were informed given that it appeared the move had already been taken without any consultation.

Disclosing to Tribune Business that civil service job and/or pay cuts were "not on the table", Mr Ferguson said it appeared to himself and other public sector union leaders that the freeze was "already written in stone" prior to their Monday meeting with Brensil Rolle, minister with responsibility for the public service, and his senior officials.

"First and foremost, the minster indicated that the government was considering some things but, based on what he said, it appears that they're already written in stone," he added. "I asked him whether he called this meeting to consult or inform us.

"They [the government] were recommending putting a freeze on hiring, a freeze on reclassifications, a freeze on promotions moving forward, and a freeze on increments for this [2020-2021] budget year."

Mr Ferguson said Mr Rolle informed the union leaders that all public sector promotions submitted and approved before the end of May - together with the associated pay increases - would be honoured. However, while all promotions submitted after May 31 will be processed, the BPSU chief said the government is planning to defer all salary increases until January 2021.

"The unions were not in agreement with the minister. Trust me, we were not," Mr Ferguson told this newspaper. "In our view, the minister was very insulting and disrespectful to the unions, and the unions are of the view that the decision was probably already taken at Cabinet level and he came to inform us."

Besides himself, other trade union leaders present at the meeting included the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) president, Belinda Wilson; her counterpart at the managers' union; Sloan Smith from the Immigration and Customs union; and representatives for the nurses union, junior doctors and senior doctors.

The civil service wage bill for the full 2019-2020 budget year is projected to be almost $670m, and the $340m paid out during the six months to end-December 2019 accounted for 29 percent - not far off one-third - of the government's total recurrent (fixed cost) spending for that period.

When forecast allowances of $83.815m are factored in, the government's human resources costs total more than $750m - some 28 per cent, or more than one-quarter - of its $2.688bn recurrent expenditure budget for 2019-2020. As a result, some observers have suggested that cuts to either civil service jobs or the payroll are inevitable if the government is to hit its ambition of a 20 percent across-the-board spending cut.

James Smith, former minister of state for finance, alluded to this when he recently told Tribune Business: "When you're cutting you have to go where the meat is. I think they [the government] need to take a national focus, and by that I mean shared pain.

"We've got the tourism sector pretty much closed down, thousands of workers have lost their jobs from the major and small hotels, and collectively they represent a larger force than the public service. They'll be going with hugely reduced incomes or no incomes at all.

"These are fellow citizens. When you cut you have to think about going into the post-COVID-19 period and into the future. We cannot have the safety net of the public service not contributing to the tightening. That's all I'll say about that, but we have to look at it because we're sending a message to the economy."

Others, though, argue that cutting public sector jobs, wages or both will only increase the burden on the National Insurance Board (NIB) from increased unemployment while also depressing consumer spending/aggregate demand at a time when this is abysmally low due to the private sector's struggles.

Mr Ferguson last night argued that the Government's "freeze" threatened to undermine civil service morale at a time when its role in administering The Bahamas was crucial due to numerous outstanding pay, promotion and other issues that remain unresolved.

Criticising Mr Rolle and his team for failing to provide the unions with sufficient data at yesterday's meeting to support the Government's case, Mr Ferguson said: "The BPSU is very concerned that the Government expects the unions to give them support at a time where there are a myriad of issues in the public sector that have not been resolved despite us informing the Department of Public Service on numerous occasions.

"There are various anomalies that the union has expressed concern about. I've personally represented some things to Public Service and have not gotten a reply. I have a young lady who was diagnosed with cancer. They put her on administrative leave for two years and coded her salary. She's back in hospital again, not receiving a salary and cannot purchase the medicines she needs."

The BPSU chief said other grievances included an outstanding increment owed to Airport Authority workers, plus "what was agreed by Dr Duane Sands [former minister of health] on behalf of people on the front lines of fighting COVID-19".

"To me, in now saying to these persons that they're putting these items on hold when they're already owing these individuals hundreds of thousands of dollars, only compounds the situation and lowers the morale of the public service," Mr Ferguson blasted.

"The union is quite aware of what we're facing on the heels of Dorian and COVID-19, but the country has to be run. We cannot expect civil servants to be disappointed and still run the country."

He also expressed displeasure that the public sector unions were only given a few hours by Mr Rolle to provide alternative cost savings suggestions to the Government. The BPSU chief reiterated previous calls to slash "exorbitant" allowances and the "humungous sums of money" being paid out to consultants.

And Mr Ferguson urged the Government to provide details on social distancing and other health protocols that will protect civil servants when they return to work, adding: "What are we going to do, because it's clear we're going to have to co-exist with this COVID-19."