UK officers
act out their passions
LONDON (December 24): United Kingdom Public Servants are being sent for
acting lessons costing up to £650 ($A1,125) a day at the country’s leading
drama school.
Whitehall Departments have engaged the services of the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art to help Public Servants perfect their presenting skills.
Officials are given voice exercises and taught how to relax their lips
and mouth, such as by making “horse noises” and blowing kisses. Those who
suffer from stage fright are given useful hints on how to combat butterflies by
tensing and relaxing muscles in their abdomen and buttocks.
The day-long courses teach individuals how to become a “more powerful
and confident presenter at work” and “how to make a strong entrance and
opening” that will “leave your audience with your message resonating in their
minds”.
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Retirement
age rise to go ahead
ATHENS (December 18): Phased increases in the retirement age for Greece's
Public Servants, introduced in 2015 after being made a condition by
international lenders, are constitutional, the country’s highest court has
ruled.
The Council of State ruled against an appeal lodged by the country's
biggest umbrella union for civil sector workers, ADEDY, challenging the
legality of the measure.
Judges ruled that changes to retirement ages were in line with the Greek
Constitution when they were intended to help ensure the survival of the social
security system, as was the case with the 2015 reforms.
“The gradual increase of retirement ages is aimed first and foremost at
rationalising the pension system by preventing early retirements before the
legal pensionable age,” the judges stated.
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Ultra-Orthodox get PS quotas
JERUSALEM (December 21): The Israeli Government has announced it will
reserve seven per cent of Public Service places for ultra-Orthodox Jews
(Haredim).
The quota will be phased in over
three years to create more employment opportunities for the growing number of
Haredim with academic degrees who are entering the workforce.
Haredim in the prime working ages
of 20 to 64 account for about nine per cent of the population in that age
cohort, but only seven per cent of the labour force because of their low
workforce participation rate.
Only around 11,000 Haredim, 3.5
per cent of total enrolment, are studying in degree programs. Many spend their
entire lives in religious studies.
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Presidential
appointments ‘damaging’
DACCA (18 December): A major anti-corruption body has called upon the
Bangladeshi Government to revise provisions in the Civil Service Act which it says are “damaging to the environment”
of public sector workers.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) singled out the right given
to the President to appoint 10 per cent of employees in the highest four levels
in the Public Service.
“If the scope of satisfactory promotion is not enforced without specific
criteria, then the democracy, efficiency and experience of the public
administration will be depreciated and professional development will be
hampered,” TIB said in a statement.
It also criticised the provision giving the right to dismiss employees
without any reason after they had completed 25 years of service.
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‘Nonsensical’
decisions a PS norm
BELFAST (December 22): A Northern Ireland Government economist has
admitted to a public inquiry that Public Servants regularly make decisions
which would seem nonsensical to the man in the street.
Shane Murphy told the probe into the failed Renewable Heat Incentive
(RHI) scheme that Public Servants believed there was a much bigger picture and
even though the rules might seem absurd to them, they trusted there was a grand
plan which they could not see.
He made the comments as he was pressed to explain why the decision had
been made to set up an RHI scheme in preference to a much cheaper grant-based
alternative.
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Tens of
thousands to lose jobs
NAIROBI (December 18): President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced that thousands
of Public Servants will lose their jobs in a massive retrenchment beginning in February.
Nearly 39,000 employees will be retrenched, according to a staff audit
report originally published two years ago.
Kenya has about 700,000 employees in the public sector, including
199,921 Public Servants in the National and County Governments.
Firing was deferred until after the recent General Election to avoid a
voters' backlash against Mr Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party, but now the Government
has decided to bite the bullet and cut the soaring public sector wage bill.
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Phoenix pay backlog drags on
OTTAWA (December 18): Latest figures show the trouble
plagued Phoenix pay system is not coping well with the changing demands of the
Canadian Public Service with a backlog of 54,000 cases relating to revised
collective agreements still to be processed.
The report also reveals that about half of the Government’s
300,000 employees are experiencing a pay issue of one kind or another.
Minister for Public Services and Procurement, Carla
Qualtrough put the blame on the implementation of 20 of the 27 core Federal
Public Service collective agreements since September, with the consequent needs
for pay adjustments.
Noting that the backlog would start to decline in
the New Year, Ms Qualtrough said it was “historic” that the Government had been
able to negotiate 20 collective agreements in less than two years out of the 27
that had expired.
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Youth rebels
on TV licences
BERNE (December 21): The editor of Switzerland’s German-language public
service television network has been asked to explain why the country’s young
people should be forced to pay licence fees for “television and radio that serves
an old and aging public”.
Tristan Brenn faced a grilling from an audience of communication
students with the principal question being the 450 Swiss Franc ($A588)
mandatory licensing fee per household per year.
It will be Mr Brenn’s job for the next three months to persuade not just
students but all of the Swiss electorate of the value of public service
broadcasting.
On March 4, voters will be asked to weigh in on a referendum to abolish
the annual license fee that covers about three-quarters of the public
broadcaster’s budget — a move supporters of the operation say would put it out
of business.
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President to
probe PS loans
HARARE (December 21): Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised
to look into deductions from Public Servants’ salaries by loan sharks.
This was in response to the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) that had sought his intervention on the deductions.
More than 30,000 Public Servants have reportedly had money deducted from their salaries by loan sharks to service loans they say they never took out.
Some of the affected workers claim they have been left with just a few cents in their pay packets after the loans were deducted.
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This was in response to the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) that had sought his intervention on the deductions.
More than 30,000 Public Servants have reportedly had money deducted from their salaries by loan sharks to service loans they say they never took out.
Some of the affected workers claim they have been left with just a few cents in their pay packets after the loans were deducted.
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Training
grants scheme rorted
SINGAPORE (December 21): Five alleged members of a Singapore criminal
syndicate have been charged with scamming a Government training grants scheme.
It was claimed in court that that the group had defrauded SkillsFuture
Singapore (SSG), of $S40 million ($A38.5 million) through making bogus claims.
The court was told that the group submitted forged documents to obtain subsidies and
that the suspects reportedly belonged to “an organised network that utilised
nine business entities, comprising employer companies and training providers,
to submit the fraudulent claims”.
Commenting on the case, a former presidential candidate, Tan Kin Lian, said
it showed “the deplorable state of our Civil Service and the political
leadership”.
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All is not equal in Brexit body
LONDON (December 20): The
United Kingdom Department for Exiting the European Union has the second widest
gender pay gap in the Public Service at 15.26 per cent, new figures show. Only
the Department of Transport is higher, with women earning 16.9 per cent on average
less than male colleagues.
The figures show that women are paid less than men
across the Public Service, with a gap of 10 per cent in seven other Departments.
The lowest disparity is three per cent in the Department
of Culture, Media and Sport.
The head of the Public Service, Sir Jeremy Heyward
said the data was a "matter for concern".
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Terrorist
victim tops PS test
SRINAGAR (December 19): A man whose home was burned by terrorists 18
years ago, forcing his family to flee their village, wants to return there as a
Public Servant.
Anjum Bashir Khan (27) has topped the Public Service examination for the
Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir. He says education is the best way to change
the destiny of youth and he will work for it in his ancestral area of
Surankote.
"There is no point of making it to this service if I'm not able to
go there and help people. Becoming an officer is one thing, but what's
important is that you should help your society. The society from where you have
come," Mr Khan said.
More than 12,000 candidates appeared for the State Public Service
examination and only 51 passed.
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Workers must prove they
are genuine
YAOUNDE
(December 19): A total of 2,817 Cameroon Public Servants whose pay has been
stopped have until January 18 to come forward and prove they are genuine, the
Minister for Public Service says.
Michel
Ange Angouing said so far 14,134 Public Servants were presumed to be
fictitious. People on the current list had been sent numerous formal notices.
“If
they do not respond they will be
purely and simply deregistered from the list of Civil Servants, in accordance
with the legislation in force," Mr Angouing said.
He
said the Government was determined to “mitigate the phenomena of fictitious Civil
Servants or of Civil Servants who had left their posts, but were still
receiving pay and entitlements.
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Need for ‘better face’ in pay deal
KINGSTON (December 21): Jamaica’s Leader of the
Opposition is urging the Government to think again over its hard-line attitude
to Public Service pay negotiations.
Peter Phillips said there was a need for the
Government to show a “different and a better face to the workers of
Jamaica”.
His
comments follow those of the Shadow Minister for the Public Service, Lambert
Brown, who described the Government's offer of six per cent as a “gimmick”,
saying that Minister for Finance, Audley Shaw was “taking the workers for
fools”.
Dr
Phillips, who was Minister for Finance in the last Government, said he was fully
aware of the need to keep the wage bill under control, but at the same time
recommended that the Government should be seeking to improve whatever benefits it
could for the workers.
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Auditor General lays
down the law
ACCRA
(December 23): Ghana’s Auditor General has warned Departments he will not
tolerate attempts by senior Public Servants to impede his work.
Daniel Domelevo insists officials cannot determine when they want to release information or dictate to him when they are ready to be audited.
Quoting the 1992 Constitution and the Audit Service Act, Mr Domelevo said he had the mandate to audit public institutions when he saw fit, adding, it was “criminal” for any official to deny his office any document.
Daniel Domelevo insists officials cannot determine when they want to release information or dictate to him when they are ready to be audited.
Quoting the 1992 Constitution and the Audit Service Act, Mr Domelevo said he had the mandate to audit public institutions when he saw fit, adding, it was “criminal” for any official to deny his office any document.
"Some
misbehaviours continue for a very long time and people think it is normal and
it becomes law...people have done it with impunity over the past and gotten
away with it. I will cite any official who flouts the Audit Act,” Mr Domelevo
said.
The full Public Service News international news service resumes on January 23 at psnews.com.au/aps/world
