More pay to stay
Published:Thursday | March 24, 2011 | 12:00 AM
OUR director general says multimillion-dollar salaries too low to keep senior staff
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
THE Head of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), Zia Mian, wants to pay more money to his senior staff in order to retain them, but is bemoaning the fact that the entity is bound by strictures of the public service which dictate salary bands for employees.
Mian, the OUR director general, also wants the agency to be given the necessary power to hire the number of staff it requires.
Writing in the 2009-2010 annual report for the regulation entity, which shows that the 12 senior staff shared $75.6 million in salaries, Mian said the money they now receive is not attractive enough to keep them working for the state.
"As a consequence of attrition and other cases, the OUR in the past few years has experienced difficulties in retaining the necessary skills mix and senior staff that are needed to discharge its day-to-day regulatory functions," Mian said.
Retain key staff
The director general argued that the OUR should be able to pay salaries in order to "retain key staff with technical skills that are superior to or equal to those that reside within the utilities that it regulates".
Said the director general: "A major contributing factor to this is that the OUR is subject to the strictures of the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, both with respect to staffing and remuneration."
Mian earns $12.8 million yearly. His deputy with responsibility for telecommunications is paid $11.4 million and his other deputy, who has responsibility for electricity and water, gets $10.6 million yearly.
"I am convinced that if the OUR is to attract and maintain the cadre of personnel required to discharge its critical functions, there is a need for it to be given greater autonomy over its remuneration and staffing designations," Mian said. "In return, the office is committed to ensuring that it will continue to subject itself to instruments of accountability and transparency that will allow stakeholders to determine whether they are getting value for money."
Phillip Paulwell, the opposition spokesman on energy and telecommunications, said yesterday he was in support of the proposal made by the OUR head.
"I would support that the regulator be able to deal entirely with its staffing issues separate and apart from the entire public service, especially because they don't rely on the Budget for funding in that there are regulator fees that are paid by the providers of utilities, and also these providers are very powerful and wealthy," Paulwell said.
He added: "I would want to ensure that those who are regulating can't use the excuse that they are underpaid and overworked."
Meanwhile, Arthur Williams, state minister in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, told The Gleaner yesterday there was an easy cure for the problem highlighted by the OUR.
"There is a provision for government companies to apply to the Ministry of Finance for particular provisions to be paid outside of the normal scale," Williams said.
The OUR is funded by fees levied on utility providers. Through its efforts last year, consumers benefited to the tune of $6.6 million in credits and compensation from utility companies which breached the guaranteed standards.