Payday jitters hit public sector

Senior technocrats at the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service have a day to work through errors with its algorithm to ensure smooth implementation of the new salary scales under the public sector compensation review system ahead of the announced December 20 payday.

The task is expected to be a mammoth one, with some government agencies and departments flying in the dark as to how to convert their salary scales to fit into the 16 presented by the Government.

In a Gleaner interview on Wednesday, Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) President O’Neil Grant argued that the ministry’s algorithm may be flawed because some calculations are not reflecting the guaranteed 20 per cent net increase on salaries.

He said that what obtains now under the new system removes that guarantee in some areas, turning what should be an increase into a negative figure.

“… Something is wrong with the algorithm. It shouldn’t have caused the workers to be going home with any negative. They should be going home with positive in all situations,” Grant asserted.

“So we have indicated to the TIU (Transformation Implementation Unit) that we do think that there is a problem with the algorithm, how the template is being applied, that is causing workers to go home with negative, zero, or very little,” he added.

The TIU manages the implementation of the public sector transformation project on behalf of the Government.

Grant said that the unit will have to now work to ensure that the algorithm’s template is tailored in a manner that gives effect to what the union agreed to at the table – an overall net increase of 20 per cent over the implementation period.

“So we have told them what the problem is. They have indicated that they are going to go back and look at it. We are hoping that it’s done quickly. We have one day. Hopefully, when we do that fix, it is not going to delay the payment of salaries next week,” said Grant.

But already, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke has indicated that there will be errors with some salaries next week, even as anxiety grows within the public sector over the outcome of the compensation review system.

He is urging government employees not to react adversely, stressing that the ministry has undertaken an “ambitious” task and is working to organise the salaries of approximately 110,000 employees into 16 categories.

The current public-sector system has 345 salary scales, which Clarke said could not continue.

“No matter what the computer might generate next week, and I tell you from now, the computer might generate in some cases an aberration or an error,” Clarke told public sector workers gathered at financial literacy seminar at the Ambassadors off Hagley Park Road in St Andrew on Wednesday.

“The system is so complicated, where we have different arrangements around the public sector and this exercise shows why we have to make these changes, and because of that great diversity of arrangements around the public sector, it almost certainly will throw up aberrations,” he added.

Clarke said when those aberrations arise, “we can’t be disorderly in how we go about bringing attention to it”.

The Government has sought to implement the public sector compensation review, effective April 1, to overhaul the structure of salaries and other emoluments in the public service to make it more equitable.

In January, Cabinet approved the award of a US$959,094 contract for the continued provision of consulting services for the compensation review for the Government of Jamaica.

The contract was awarded to Ernst and Young Services Limited.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com