Moves to tackle PS staff shortage

Cuffie made the announcement on Wednesday while responding to questions from reporters at the National Library and Information Service’s (NALIS) Public Service day in Port of Spain.

He said Government intends boost recruitment and address unemployment by making it possible for people to be directly recruited by various ministries rather than through the Public Service Commission.

“What we have is that we have reduced the time for recruitment – and I announced it in Parliament last week – public servants can now be recruited through ministries rather than the Service Commission which was the central department for the recruitment of public servants. So now ministries can recruit under the ambit of the service commission. So that makes it far easier for us to get additional public servants.” Cuffie added that the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the public service and the use of additional ICT for communication and partnerships had been approved by the Cabinet.

The Mininster said he was optimistic that this initiative would go a long way in enhancing the performance of the public service.

“The technology and that is ICTs, are being used more and more to perform the public service function and we have gotten an increase in the number of ICT resources available to the public service.

Last week Cabinet approved the government’s plan to treat with the public service that will see more ministries being interconnected so that public servants in one ministry can better connect to public servants in another ministry, and once that plan is implemented, you will see a far greater performance of the public service through ICTs.”