Public service comes out to show its services
The Government of Belize is the largest employer in the nation. Services offered by government departments and ministries represent an important vein not only in the legal and justice system, but in health, agriculture and just about every industry in the country. And though International Public Service Day is a month away on June twenty-third, the Public Service Committee organized a display at the ITVET on Freetown Road. According to the Belize District Representative, the public service will embark on a district tour not only to educate the public about their jobs but also to offer their services on location.
Anissa Perdomo, District Representative, Public Service Committee
“Today we’re having Public Service Information Day. This is something organized by the subcommittee under the Ministry of Public Service. It is something leading up to the international Public Service Day, which is June twenty-third. So leaning up to that, we start having information day throughout the country. In Belize City, today is the first one that we are having. On Friday, we’re having San Pedro. The twenty-third of June is Belmopan and Corozal and the thirtieth of May, Dangriga.
Jose Sanchez, Model
Anissa Perdomo
“Which parts of the public service are out here today and what are they doing?”
Anissa Perdomo
“We have about twenty departments participating. It is a wide scope of departments. We have some new departments that have come onboard. We have the forensic department; they have a wonderful exhibit at their booth. We have the revenue department, GST, income tax, customs and the treasury department.”
Jose Sanchez
“I know it is for information, but you have schools and students. What is your hope that they would in addition to an appreciation to public services?”
Anissa Perdomo
“Well one of the pain things is that we wanted to showcase services we offer from different departments. Many times you don’t know what a department officer as a serve. We had to take the survey and we want to stress to public officers, offer the service that they have in the different departments.”
The very fact that the GOB is the largest employer proves that taxes will remain excessive to pay for redundant services. This demonstration of services offered shows GOB has to justify its expenditures on useless services. How about eliminating some departments that exist to pay UDP supporters? How about letting private entrepreneurs(Belizeans) perform some of these services if such are truly needed?
Wonderfully said, @Malthus.
The overly large public sector costs are an anchor holding down development of the entire country, keeping us all poorer than we should be. We all know government is less efficient by far than private business, and there is another word for that inefficiency: WASTE.
I read a book once called “Burning Money,” about a cost-cutting commission in the USA when Reagan was president there. It summarized the wasteful practices, duplication, and sometimes simple stupidity there, and would have saved the US taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars if the reforms it suggested had been put in place. I remember to this day that one agency had 16 DIFFERENT COMPUTER SYSTEMS and they could not communicate with each other, meaning much of the information that was compiled at great expense was really useless.
WE NEED A SIMILAR GROUP HERE TO STUDY HOW THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS ITS MONEY, AND TRY TO PINPOINT WAYS TO DO THINGS BETTER AND CHEAPER. It doesn’t really need to be a government commission, some civic or business groups could volunteer to do the job, and I’ll bet in a year they can find at least 10% of the national budget to save by making things more efficient.
Would you support a study to identify waste and inefficiency in government? It could even have a “tipline” or website where whistle-blowers employed in government could send in tips to identify waste they have seen.
why did they leave out Toledo and Stann CreeK?, like Placencia and Punta Gorda?