BAHAMAS
The Bahamas Public Service wage bill is being rescued from chaos largely caused by non-existent workers on the payroll, Deputy Prime Minister, Peter Turnquest (pictured) has revealed.
He said the Government had overbudgeted by BS$53 million (A$76 million) because it suffered from “a historical pattern” of overbudgeting due to the failure to remove from the payroll workers who had either resigned or retired.
This had reduced funding on other public spending priorities, such as the security forces, health, education and social services, the Deputy Prime Minister said.
Presenting the 2019–20 Budget in the House of Assembly, Mr Turnquest slammed a “very shallow and superficial budgeting process” that had frequently seen multiple Government Agencies spend just 60 per cent to 70 per cent of their annual allocations.
“For too long, we have relied on an unscientific budgeting process where Ministries, Departments and Agencies simply base next year’s expenditure on their current budget, then add a few dollars for new project proposals,” Mr Turnquest said.
He said the overbudgeting of the Public Service wage bill had been exposed by an internal Government review “Ministry-by-Ministry, line-item-by-line-item” that compared actual spending with budgeted allocations.
“Civil Service wages and benefits have tapered by BS$28.9 million [A$41.2 million] to BS$576.9 million [A$827.8 million] for the first 10 months of the 2018–2019 fiscal year without any decrease in the total headcount,” Mr Turnquest said.
Nassau, 31 May 2019
