Communities Ministry Action Roundtable aims to enhance regional development

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Regional Executive Officers (REOs) and Personnel Officials from the 10 regions now have a better understanding of the protocols and guidelines governing the administration of their respective portfolios.

This was made possible through various presentations from the Public Service Commission at a two-day Action Roundtable hosted by the Ministry of Communities at the Impeccable Banquet Hall. The Roundtable, the fourth of its kind, was intended to improve the human resource capacity towards enhanced regional development.

The participants also benefited from presentations on guidelines in relation to the processing of appointments, secondment, special assignments, transfers, benefits and disciplinary matters.

Minister of Health, Volda Lawrence also engaged the officials on some of the deficiencies in the system and stressed that the regions must foster a stronger collaboration with the Ministry in order to address these issues. She pointed to drug shortages, absentee health employees and a backlog of vacancies as some of the nuances that affect the proper functioning of the regional system and emphasised that strides are being made to correct these deficiencies.

The objective of the Action Roundtable was to establish roadmaps to address severe challenges hampering the implementation of the Public Sector Improvement Project (PSIP).

The conference also saw presentations from Permanent Secretary (ag) of the Department of Public Service Andrew Grant and PSC Secretary, Marvalyn Stephens.