Government workers who were retrenched this year and are still waiting for their severance could be getting their monies in time for Christmas.
This follows Parliament’s passing of a resolution today to grant $3.67 million from the Consolidated Fund to pay the outstanding monies.
As he moved the resolution, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler apologized to former workers in the central public service and statutory corporations for the delay in paying their severance.
“Part of that had to do with the appropriate gathering of the information for the various departments through to the Accountant General for computation and verification and that has now been done,” he told his colleagues in the House of Assembly.
Although not saying how many retrenched workers were still awaiting severance, Sinckler added: “We do know that the vast majority have, in fact, received. As for those that have not . . . my understanding is that the numbers are relatively small but it is important that we do get those resources to those persons.”
Sinckler explained that some departments had been “liquid enough” to pay severance immediately but others had cash flow challenges and workers therefore had to wait until funds became available.
With payments out of the way, he said, the hope was that “we can work assiduously as a country and as a Government to ensure that we create opportunities, preferably in the private economy, so that those workers who have unfortunately been displaced and have not yet been able to find employment would be able to do so as quickly as possible”.