Patterson orders freeze on hiring of consultants
PRIME Minister P J Patterson yesterday ordered an “immediate freeze” on the hiring of government consultants, advisors, and special advisors after a report he had commissioned raised troubling questions about how such positions were defined.
“To me, what is most telling is that the report has revealed a deficiency in the way in which consultants and advisors are classified in the public sector,” said Patterson, when tabling the report in Parliament.
“The freeze will remain in force for a period of three months to permit sufficient time for a clear definition of the role and functions of these categories of persons to be developed, approved by the Cabinet and made public,” Patterson said.
He explained that the terms “consultant” “advisors” and “special advisors” are used “interchangeably” even though different ministries give them different roles and functions.
“The classification exercise must review once and for all the ambiguity which now prevails,” said Patterson. The report, he said, confirmed recommendations pertaining to consultants already outlined in the Orane Report on “Reducing Waste in the Public Sector”.
The freeze comes nearly four months after Opposition spokesman on finance, Audley Shaw, charged that there was heavy duplication in the functions of many of the consultants and accused the Government of providing jobs for its friends. The list of jobs could be cut by half, he said, when questioning whether the country was getting value for money.
Patterson thereupon ordered his Cabinet secretary, Carlton Davis, to prepare the document which was yesterday tabled in the House.
Davis’ report revealed that the Government employs 144 people — including nine ex-parliamentarians — as “consultants,” “special advisors” and “adviser/consultants”.
Sixty-eight of the “consultants/advisers” receive annual payments averaging $2.56 million each, and the ex-parliamentarians receive an average of $1.65 million each.
Patterson said the freeze on the appoint of “special advisors” will be “absolute, with no exceptions”.
But he said an exception to the freeze would be made to employ consultants needed to “facilitate the timely implementation of projects already approved”. The Cabinet would have to sign off on such appointments, he added.
At the same time, Patterson said he had ordered the government’s permanent secretaries to “immediately” review the consultants in their ministries “with a view to eliminating redundant or marginal persons as soon as it is legally feasible to do so”.