The government has already begun the process to plug the staffing shortfall in several key state agencies, including the Board of Inland Revenue.
At Thursday’s Post-Cabinet Media Briefing, Minister of Planning, Economic Affairs and Development, Dr. Kennedy Swaratsingh, noted that steps are already in place to address the issue, particularly with the Board of Inland Revenue and Customs.
“We already brought in the special fire officers, special reserve fire officers. We’re doing the same thing with the SRPs. We have already begun to recruit for BIR. We met with Customs, and we’re beginning to address the Customs shortages.”
But he pointed out that there is a disadvantage to addressing the shortfall in BIR and Customs.
“The reason why the absorption of persons in fire and police are so critical is that they’re already trained. They’re already on the job. So it’s an easy assimilation, notwithstanding the various issues that you would have raised. When you bring in people, for example, in Customs and other places, there’s a level of training. So even when you recruit persons, you still have in BIR, you have six months of training to be a tax officer or tax auditor. Customs is the same thing.”
He said past recruitment waves have created new problems in the past.
“What you would have also found is that there’s been a level of attrition. When we stagger our recruitment processes and you bring in large batches of persons at any one point in time, the reciprocal effect of that is that all those persons leave at the same time. So, for example, one of the areas in Customs that we would have had to look at is that you have a lot of younger persons performing jobs that are better suited for more experienced officers. So those are things that we have to address. So it’s not simply the recruitment.”
He noted, though, that it’s an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach to solving the issues.
“So the Comptroller of Customs, the Commissioner of Police, the Chief Fire Officer, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, they’re all getting a sense that not only one Minister, but several Ministers are engaging with them, trying to solve these problems. And the Minister of Finance has been working round the clock to make sure that we have the resources we need to address some of those issues.”
Minister Swaratsingh stated that it’s a crisis that’s been quietly building for years, affecting many key agencies.
“Maybe I can tell you which ones are not, because they’re all. I mean, the DPA, CPO, all the agencies. There has been a significant lack of resourcing, both in terms of human resource and other resources.”
This, he said, continues to hamper the ability of the various government agencies to perform at maximum efficiency.