Nearly $1-billion saved from merging of public bodies
Approximately $1 billion in savings to the
Government has been realised from the rationalisation of public bodies to date.
Executive Director of the Transformation
Implementation Unit (TIU) in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service,
Maria Thompson Walters, made the disclosure at a JIS Think Tank on Tuesday
(October 2).
She
said that the finance team, “is working to create a model to track those
savings back into the Consolidated Fund… in an effort to ensure that the extra
funds are available to deal with areas such as health, security and
education”.
Thompson Walters said that 30 public bodies
have been rationalised to date, with plans in place for another 18 entities to
be merged for reintegrated into their parent ministries by the end of the
calendar year.
These include the merger of the Fair
Trading Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC); closure of
the Correctional Services Production Company (COSPROD) and integration of those
services into the Correctional Services Division; closure of National Energy
Solutions (NeSol) and the integration of those functions into the Ministry of
Science, Energy and Technology; and the integration of the Golden Age Home into
the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development.
Among the objectives of the rationalisation
process are to ensure greater efficiency and effectiveness in public-sector
service delivery, reduce costs, and improve governance.
“It will make things more efficient and
ensure that employees are paid properly,” Thompson Walters said.
She noted that, “while some jobs will be
diminished, many new jobs will also evolve out of this transformation process,
especially around data production and data analysis”.
“We are trying to ensure that we create an
environment where data becomes very important to policymaking, so that we can
forecast more accurately,” she said.
The TIU has the goal of implementing
projects within the public sector to increase efficiency and the use of
information and communications technology (ICT), improve human resources
management, implement shared corporate services among public bodies, and
overhaul compensation management.
