00:00For P.S. Barrow, I congratulate her. She took us through that transition phase after we formed the government and she has continued to work with us. We look forward to you now joining her, P.S.'s, Deputy P.S.'s, Senior Officials.
00:15Prime Minister Kamala Pesad-Besad is speaking about the operations of the public service since her party and its coalition won the 2025 general election in April of last year, as she congratulated the new head of the public service, Natasha Barrow, during a ceremony at the diplomatic center.
00:32There are stories about how many people have been fired and sent home. 99% of those things are not true. The professionals in the public service, I have not sent one home, not one.
00:42I don't wish to send any. And I don't think I can even send somebody home, even if I wanted to. I don't have that power. I don't have that jurisdiction. But P.S. Barrow can.
00:52However, the Prime Minister's message was not only about addressing any delinquency in the public service.
00:58P.S. Barrow, I'm putting you on the spot. I'm trying to be a little amusing. But you may have the authority to make recommendations.
01:06And I will ask you, in all fairness and in all balance, that we reward those who are willing to work. Those who are willing to put the shoulders to the wheel, we lift them up. Let us stop all this acting.
01:16The Prime Minister noted that some retire from the public service after having served for several years in acting positions.
01:23Let's get the D.P.A. and the Service Commission to work. Get them to work. Get them to work. And if you all, as the P.S.s and your ministries and deputy P.S.s and senior public servants, if you can help us get it done, then we could stop all this acting.
01:41Some of you should get an Oscar nomination. Or actually collect an Oscar because you've been acting for so long.
01:47Prime Minister Prasad-Basasa also addressed another matter.
01:51I talked about confidentiality. I briefly mentioned about the cabinet notes.
01:55Cabinet notes don't leak by guess or by mistake.
01:58Somebody is actually trying to help somebody else by leaking those notes.
02:04I want to tell you that every single cabinet decision that we take, which is at least once a week, sometimes we do smaller meetings,
02:13every single one of those are sent to Her Excellency, the President.
02:18Because there's a Section 81 in our Constitution which says the government must keep Her Excellency informed of the day-to-day business of the government.
02:27And there was also reference to one particular aspect of the day-to-day business of the government.
02:33Some training may be in, you know, in handling the public.
02:40And sometimes in the crush that we had recently at the licensing offices again, those offices would have been overwhelmed
02:46because so many people took too long to come in to renew or whatever, putting pressure on the public servants in those offices.
02:54So there will be times when there will be an absurge of matters happening, of things taking place.
02:59And perhaps we have to have a little more training for those times when we are going to get more public,
03:04more people from the public coming to see us and talk with us.
03:08A reference to those who recently sought to have certain services done at the licensing office
03:13following the recent increase in fines for several traffic offenses.
03:19Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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