UGANDA
Biometrics to monitor PS attendance
The Ugandan Government is to introduce biometric machines in Public Service offices to monitor whether officers turn up for work.
Head of the Delivery Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister, Ezra Suruma said the machines were part of a new plan to start paying PS employees according to the number of days they had worked.
He said it would replace the traditional system whereby workers signed on to an attendance register, which was open to abuse.
However, Secretary-General of the National Organisation of Trade Unions, Peter Christopher Werikhe said simply turning up for work was no guarantee of productivity.
“The best motivation would be better pay,” Mr Werikhe said.
Kampala, 28 May 2018
CANADA
PS warned on office party joints
Public Service staff in the Canadian Province of Manitoba have been told it will not be okay to smoke marihuana at office parties even though cannabis for recreational use will soon be legalised.
A draft policy from Manitoba’s Civil Service Commission says the consumption of alcohol will continue to be authorised at some functions, but cannabis will still be off limits.
“Consumption of alcohol may be acceptable when in conjunction with a workplace event or social function where consumption has been authorised by the appropriate employing authority,” the Civil Service Commission said.
“The use of cannabis is prohibited at all times in relation to working hours … and work-related events or social functions, unless it has been prescribed [medically].”
Winnipeg, 28 May 2018
UNITED KINGDOM
Home Office figures moved after row
The Director-General of Immigration Enforcement at the UK Home Office, Hugh Ind and Second Permanent Secretary, Patsy Wilkinson have been moved to other jobs in Government.
The changes come in the wake of the row over Home Office deportation targets that led to the resignation of the Minister, Amber Rudd.
Mr Ind will lead the implementation of the Public Sector Apprenticeships Strategy in the Cabinet Office, while Ms Wilkinson will leave for what the Home Office described as a “national security role outside the Department”.
Ms Rudd told the Home Affairs Select Committee in April the Department did not have targets for deportation of illegal immigrants; this was subsequently revealed to be untrue.
London, 25 May 2018
JAMAICA
Compo complexity costing money
Jamaica’s Minister for Finance, Dr Nigel Clarke says the complex compensation and allowance system in the public sector is contributing to an escalation of the wage bill.
In an address to a meeting of the Jamaica Civil Service Association, Dr Clarke said the complex structure also made the wage negotiation process difficult.
“Transformation of the public sector is a priority for the Government,” Dr Clarke said.
He said the Civil Service was the single most important institution affecting the lives of Jamaicans.
“As a result, we must ensure that the Civil Service is efficient and responsive in the provision of services to citizens,” Dr Clarke said.
Kingston, 28 May 2018
CHAD
PS strike shuts schools and hospitals
Public Servants in Chad have gone on strike over pay cuts, closing hospitals and schools.
Public sector workers are demanding payment of their full salaries after bonuses and allowances were slashed by 50 per cent in January as part of a package of austerity measures to improve state finances.
They had already seen a similar 50 per cent cut in 2016.
President, Idriss Deby had asked PS staff to wait until the end of the year to regularise their salaries, but the unions refused his request and called an indefinite strike.
Primary and secondary schools and the University of N’Djamena closed while skeleton staff were running the main Ministries.
The general hospital in the capital was providing “a minimal service for surgery, resuscitation and other sensitive services”.
N’Djamena, 30 May 2018
CANADA
Call for PM to fix PS pay woes
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has been asked to intervene in stalled talks aimed at compensating Federal Government employees affected by the Phoenix pay system fiasco.
The largest union representing Federal employees, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said the talks were going nowhere, with Government negotiators saying they had not been told how to proceed.
The leaders of 17 unions issued a letter to Mr Trudeau in February, demanding compensation for PS staff who had suffered as a result of the pay crisis.
For more than two years, tens of thousands of Federal workers have been affected by problems plaguing the Phoenix system, which was supposed to streamline pay services across Government.
Ottawa, 25 May 2018
ALGERIA
No back down over PS doctors
The Algerian Minister of Health, Population and Hospital Reform, Mokhtar Hasbellaoui says the Government will not back down from its demand that graduating doctors must serve the state for a minimum of three years.
Mr Hasbellaoui told Parliament he was determined that no doctor would be exempt even in the face of the junior doctors’ strike now in its seventh month.
However, he said he would “work to provide the necessary conditions to make the Public Service more flexible”.
Doctors in Algeria have to perform public service for at least three years after graduating, usually in the desert and remote areas under poor conditions.
Algiers, 31 May 2018
