Public Service to end three-month wait for first salary

As a matter of practice, new public servants have had to work three months before receiving their first salary, but the new Minister of the Public Service Tabitha Sarabo-Halley Thursday said she has found no rule or policy that substantiates this.

She said she finds the practice unconscionable and thus it will be discontinued after the month of July.

The Public Service Minister said she is working with her staff to remove this bugbear from those who are desirous of joining the Public Service.

The Minister said she was not sure how the practice arose. She said she was told that “it’s just somebody” who made up a policy and persons decided to follow it.

“Why would you have somebody working, trying to find food, money to get to work, for three whole months and not pay them?”

Speaking at a press conference at her Waterloo Street, Georgetown office, she said for persons assigned to the interior, it could take as much as five months for someone to receive their first salary.

“…that is something I think should stop immediately,” the Minister declared.

“So, going forward no one should have to wait beyond one month of being hired to receive their first salary.”