Brebnor on proposed THA hiring freeze

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor says the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) ad­min­is­tra­tion is not afraid to make tough de­ci­sions for the ben­e­fit of the is­land.

She was speak­ing to the me­dia on Sat­ur­day fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine that the THA is con­sid­er­ing a fu­ture hir­ing freeze. Breb­nor echoed con­cerns by Au­gus­tine about mount­ing re­cur­rent ex­pens­es stymy­ing the as­sem­bly’s ef­forts to de­vel­op the is­land. The as­sem­bly’s wage bill sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased be­tween Jan­u­ary 2022 to May 2026 with 3,146 new em­ploy­ees.

Au­gus­tine said, “There will come a point, Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my, where I will have to is­sue an edict freez­ing em­ploy­ment in the THA be­cause we can’t just keep go­ing.”

But the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance have con­demned the strat­e­gy, al­leg­ing the TPP duped the pop­u­la­tion pri­or to the Jan­u­ary 12 THA elec­tions. Both par­ties are call­ing on the THA to be more cre­ative in its ap­proach and urged it to out­line its plan to de­vel­op the pri­vate sec­tor.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed has warned the THA of a po­lit­i­cal back­lash if it is not trans­par­ent with the pop­u­la­tion.

Asked how long the THA has been con­sid­er­ing im­ple­ment­ing a freeze, Breb­nor said, “This is some­thing we have been think­ing about it since we start­ed. We are strate­gi­cal­ly look­ing a what the num­bers are telling us.”

She added that the TPP is ful­ly aware that there might be an ini­tial neg­a­tive re­ac­tion from the pub­lic.

“It is a dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion to have. As a mat­ter of fact, as politi­cians, it is one of the most dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions to have, but we are a gov­ern­ment that has al­ways been re­spon­si­ble. We are a gov­ern­ment that has al­ways done what is the best for the is­land, not nec­es­sar­i­ly for our po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

How­ev­er, she stressed that the TPP’s over­whelm­ing 15-0 man­date in the elec­tions show it has the un­wa­ver­ing trust of the peo­ple.

“They recog­nise we are mak­ing de­ci­sions that are best for every­one.”

While the Sec­re­tary of Health and Well­ness said there is cur­rent­ly no time­line for im­ple­men­ta­tion of the freeze, she said the THA can­not con­tin­ue em­ploy­ing over 60 per cent of the is­land’s work­force.

“That is a re­al­ly high num­ber and that is not a sus­tain­able method for run­ning the econ­o­my. It is some­thing we are look­ing at, but by no means we are kick­ing out any­one, she said.”

The TPP deputy leader said the ad­min­is­tra­tion will treat with the po­ten­tial freeze in a con­sid­er­ate and re­spon­si­ble man­ner.

“If and when that will hap­pen, we are as­sured it is done in the hu­mane way. What we re­al­ly like is for peo­ple to say we don’t want no gov­ern­ment work again be­cause the pri­vate sec­tor is the bet­ter place to work.”

She said the THA bud­get for fis­cal 2027 lists sev­er­al mea­sures to boost ac­tiv­i­ty in the pri­vate sec­tor and up­skill the labour force.

She said the digi­ti­sa­tion of the work­flow in the as­sem­bly will con­tin­ue in the cur­rent four-year term to en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy. How­ev­er, she stressed the im­por­tance of staff em­brac­ing the tech­nol­o­gy and op­ti­mis­ing it.

“The aim is not to re­place peo­ple but to get them up to speed.”