Nearly $1 billion saved from public bodies rationalisation

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 while speaking with the government news agency, the JIS, on Tuesday.

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 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, reduced costs, and improved governance.

Efficiency the aim

“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 , improve human resources management, implement shared corporate services among public bodies, and overhaul compensation management.