By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Social Services Minister Frankie Campbell yesterday condemned the government’s decision to lay off several employees from Urban Renewal in what he described as a “political” act.

His comments came after Social Services and Urban Development Minister Obie Wilchcombe confirmed the layoffs to reporters last week, explaining that former employees were only let go after their contracts had ended.

The minister also claimed many staff members who had been laid off had operated under uncertain status.

“The reality is many were in the system and in fact we’ve had some very unusual circumstances as well where we’ve had individuals without contracts who’ve been working, and so we’ve had to bring to some level of normalcy,” Mr Wilchcombe said last week.

“The public service over the many years, not just now, but for many years, has seen the population of individuals who are in the service with their status uncertain and we don’t want that to continue.”

He said the workers are free to reapply for employment with the department.

Yesterday, Mr Campbell said the recent layoffs showed the Davis administration had a “hidden agenda".

He also described claims that the former employees never applied to be made permanent as being completely false.

Mr Campbell said: “The instructions that I gave that was everyone in Urban Renewal was interested in their jobs and was interested in continuing to the point that I had made recommendation that those who weren’t permanent and pensionable be added to the permanent and pensionable list and the Ministry for Public Service was busy interviewing those persons and calling them in to bring in additional documents so steps were being taken to make those persons permanent and pensionable.

“It was a surprise and shock to hear that those persons were released and how the explanation is being said that they didn’t re-apply. That is not so. I am also fully aware that there were persons with contract in hand that would not have expired until next year 2023 that have been released so the explanation makes it clear that there is a hidden agenda, and one could only conclude - based on the history of that side - is that it’s political victimisation.”

News of more people being sent to the unemployment line comes as the country continues to grapple with the economic fall-out of COVID-19.

The situation is also exacerbated by concerns about rising food and oil costs caused by global inflation and threats of war after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Yesterday, Mr Campbell said bad decision making by the Davis administration has worsened the country’s economic crisis and caused more hardship for the Bahamian people.

“The evidence is clear,” the former parliamentarian told reporters yesterday. “The government by stopping certain initiatives and by hiking the prices and by adding VAT to breadbasket items has really added to the hardship and increased the misery index so no they have not helped. They have only made the situation worse.

"...We accept that nothing is written in stone and one of the constant things in life is change so we would’ve accepted that some changes will need to be made, but not changes that add to the hardship, not changes that increase the prices that were duty-free, not changes that increase the amount of persons who end up on the social services line because their jobs are taken away from them.

“Not changes that suggest that a person didn’t re-apply to keep his job, but that person was coming to work every day and expressing an interest in his job and doing his job. I know that advice is a funny thing. The wise don’t need it and the fool won’t heed to it but my humble suggestion is before we remove everything that was left in place, let’s examine the reasoning behind it.

“Before we go and dismiss persons, let’s go and examine the ramifications and the long-term ramifications and how many more persons will be affected by this. Before we go to add to persons needing social assistance, let’s see how much more we can help to reduce the hardship that people are suffering from,” Mr Campbell said.