Are Senior Staffers at Audit Department Being Deliberately Overlooked?

On Monday morning, a letter signed by senior members of the Audit Department was tendered to Chief Executive Officer Rolando Zetina of the Ministry of the Public Service. The letter places on record concerns from members of staff with respect of upward mobility within the department.  According to the letter, it has been the practice that senior staffers have been glossed over in favor of junior employees for key positions within the department.  It is a situation that the Public Service Union is also aware of.  This morning, P.S.U. President Dean Flowers spoke with the media about the concerns being raised by his colleagues in the public service.

Dean Flowers

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union

“If one would do an investigation in terms of the amount of complaints that have been levied about that office to the Ministry of Public Service, one could probably write a book.  What’s unfortunate with this current situation is that we know that the former auditor general did not enjoy the confidence of her staff or the vast majority of her staff, I would say, to the point that there was a sick out at one point in time to try to get the attention of the Government of Belize and that didn’t go anywhere.  So when she reached the point of retirement, they felt that perhaps there would be some improvements within that office, but it would appear that her successor would have been trained well to keep that atmosphere of animosity going.  No doubt, there is evidence to suggest that the staff has been victimized and unfairly so by the former auditor general.  I will say that some of the issues that we’ve been dealing with where the allowances are concerned and where the opportunities for upward mobility are concerned, I would say that the current acting auditor general, I understand, has changed her position where those longstanding grievances for allowances are concerned and is now in support of the officers getting what they just deserve.  But where promotions are concerned, where giving each and every audit officer in that department an opportunity to be able to move upwards, it would appear that that is the main issue of concern.  That existed under the former auditor general, whereby even the current acting auditor general, her constitutional appointment was questioned by the Solicitor General’s Office and those records are there.”