OVER 90 per cent of the $1.081 billion allocated to Ministry of the Public Service (MoPS) will cater for academic scholarship grants and training, Public Service Minister Sonia Parag said on Wednesday.

The ministry has already received over 700 scholarship applications over the past three weeks since notices were advertised inviting applications.
Minister Parag, who was speaking during the 2020 budget debate, also pointed out that while nothing has yet been said about salary increases for public servants, that is by no means an indication that future discussions will not be done.

She was at the time responding to comments made by former Minister of the Public Service, and current Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, who was the first speaker of the day.

“Budget 2020 will serve the people of Guyana and more importantly the public service and public servants of Guyana, and to ensure that they are safe and secure and their welfare will also be taken care of as well,” Minister Parag established.

She added that: “An increase in salary for public servants is not included in the budget [because] there is something called collective bargaining and that is what you do and then it is put in there. Let us get our facts straight before we criticise,” Parag asserted.

ALL PRODUCTIVE SECTORS

The minister said the training and scholarship grants are expected to cover all productive sectors in the country, including the oil-and-gas sector.
“No area that is a developing area will be left behind in training and scholarships,” the minister pledged.

For current scholarship students stuck overseas, the minister noted that arrangements are also being made to have aid sent to them.
Speaking immediately before Parag, Sarabo-Halley during her 30 minutes before the National Assembly called the budget “anti-working class” and “anti-public service.”
“I must ask why they have chosen to neglect the public servants in this budget? There is nothing of substance in the budget for public servants; what we have instead is a clear indication that the government intends to significantly reduce the human resources in the public service,” Sarabo-Halley accused.

Parag noted that under the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) there are many plans to develop and advance the public sector.
“We are committed to reforming and modernising the public service in a holistic manner,” Parag established, adding that: “Modernisation does not only speak to software advancement, but to change of mentality to conform to the rest of the Region and world. The budget will also cater for modernisation and professionalisation of the public service. Discussions are already underway, and consultations with relevant stakeholders to modernise the public service rules which have not been looked at all over the last five years,” she said.

INADEQUATE
Parag highlighted that plans are in the pipeline to develop the ministry’s website, as the one left behind by the APNU+AFC administration has been deemed inadequate.
“We had a website created under the guise of modernisation, I am appraised by the IT specialist that the website is inadequate and we are creating a website more user-friendly and geared towards allowing for better application analysis reporting and management of scholarships what we have not seen in the last five years,” Parag related.
Parag and Sarabo-Halley also traded words on claims pertaining to scholarship distribution over the past five years under the former APNU+AFC government, revisiting claims made last month by the minister that the vetting for scholarships over the past few years was “heavily flawed.”

It was during a press conference last month that Minister Parag explained that the vetting of scholarships was skewed to one demographic and geographic area in Guyana, and that had been going on for the last five years.

On Wednesday in the National Assembly, the minister came armed with statistics to back her claims.
The minister said that for last year, in the overseas scholarships awarded across the country, none were awarded to anyone from Regions Seven, Eight or Nine, while for the remaining regions one was awarded to Region One; five to Region Two; five to Region Three; 36 to Region Four; a mere two to Region Five; 12 to Region Six; and five to Region 10.

For the local scholarships, according to the minister’s statistics, a total of 228 were distributed with Region Eight once again receiving none; of the other regions the distribution was three for Region One; eight for Region Two; 25 for Region three; 122 for Region Four; 11 for Region Five; 23 for Region Six; four for Region Seven and Nine, each; and 28 to Region 10.

“The hinterland and indigenous people that they are fighting so much for have been left behind for the last five years. Those were for year 2019 and that has been the pattern for [the] past five years regarding scholarships,” Parag said.

Speaking on the issue during her address, Sarabo-Halley’s defence was that the scholarships awarded under the previous administration were consistent with the applications received.