New deadline for car fleet info
THE finance ministry has extended until month-end the deadline for other Government ministries and agencies to present it with details of their vehicle fleet and lists of employees to whom Government-owned cars are assigned.
According to a senior ministry executive overseeing the Government’s new motor vehicle policy, only about 30 to 40 per cent of the ministries and departments have so far submitted the information that was due on August 1.
This information is critical to determining which officers will now get cars in the face of the Administration’s plan to cut back on this entitlement, which the Government projects will slash its vehicle fleet by as much as 80 per cent.
“We are currently on them like hawks to get the remainder…,” said the official. “We are giving them until the end of the month.”
Finance ministry figures, the official said, suggested that there are “2,837 cars under the Government fleet”, but it was not clear if this included those owned by all departments as well as local government authorities.
The vehicles that are accounted for include 1,200 owned by the police, 265 by the Jamaica Defence Force (of which only 158 are operational) and 102 by the Fire Brigade. These will not be subject to the policy under which people who are no longer entitled to vehicles will have an option to buy them with Government loans.
The assignment of vehicles will now be confined to a greatly-reduced list of public officers such as permanent secretaries and the heads of specified departments, the ministry said. Deputy permanent secretaries, for instance, will no longer be allowed this privilege.
Those who are still eligible for motor vehicles include:
* the Cabinet secretary;
* the financial secretary;
* the auditor general;
* permanent secretaries;
* the chief parliamentary counsel;
* the director of public prosecutions;
* the chief personnel officer;
* chief technical directors; and
* any other position so designated by the top level salaries committee.
Cabinet had agreed on the new policy in February and set the August 1 deadline for ministries and departments to provide an inventory of their vehicles to the finance ministry, which would then decide what categories of employees are entitled to cars.
The move was aimed, the Government said, at improving efficiency and cutting costs. But up to Tuesday, only a handful of ministries, departments, agencies and statutory companies had complied.
There is no recent information on what the Government spends on the purchase of motor vehicles, but the 1999 Orane Report said it cost $250 million a year for gasolene, although half of that was to power units owned by the police.