Public servants protest for better treatment

DAV IS: WART SILA ENGINES AT BPL ‘never worked ProPerly’

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said Bahamas Power and Light’s Wartsila engines “never worked properly”.

He responded to former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis’ criticisms about rising electricity costs and reliability issues.

He noted the government discontinued his administration’s fuel hedge programme, which the Inter-American group of Chinese nationals when they were released from custody in January.

The Ministry of Immigration said the Chinese nationals were here legally and that their employers were applying for their work permits when the workers were detained and quickly freed earlier this year.

Likewise, Strategic

US S AYS GOVT ‘stalling anticorruP tion’ LEGISLAT ION

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

SCORES of disgruntled social services and healthcare workers demonstrated outside the House of Assembly yesterday, demanding promotions and better workplace benefits.

The public servants, including Ministry of

Health dental department employees, called for hazardous pay, scarcity allowance, and the regularisation of workers, among other things.

“I have been in social services ten years and I ain’t get my letter yet,” said Jason Rolle.

“I want permanency. I is a maintenance man. I is do all sorts of things. That’s all you does do under government. You does do all kinda people work and only get one paycheck.”

Patrice Glenda Rolle Curry, a chief social worker, said staff morale is at an alltime low.

“We are losing social workers left, right and straight,” she said. “The

THE US State Department yesterday accused the Government of “stalling full implementation of anticorruption legislation that would promote transparency and good governance” such as the Freedom of Information Act.

The Biden administration, in its newly-released 2023 ‘investment climate statement’ on The Bahamas, also reiterated prior concerns that laws and regulations to combat graft have been “inconsistently applied”.