Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

'I don't like to see people fired but...'- Premier Fahie on public service

With an already bloated civil service that devours a major portion of recurrent expenses, Premier and Minister of Finance, Honourable Andrew A. Fahie has said he is unwilling to unnecessarily increase the public service, a stance he said may gain him some unpopularity.

"When you say no, they are going to tell people Fahie is a dictator," the Premier said on Friday, December 13, 2019, during the budget debate at the House of Assembly (HoA).

"I have seen the public service over my years in public office grown by this philosophy – give me this person here and we will be able to grow revenue – and you give them the person, and then they come back, and they tell you this person need a secretary."

The Premier said the cycle then continues with a string of new positions in the public service.

He continued: "Then they come back, and they tell you that the secretary needs a secretary and then they tell you that the secretary, who get the secretary, need a messenger; and then they come back and tell you that the secretary who gets the secretary who gets the messenger, the messenger needs a messenger."


Employees not being disciplined

Meanwhile, Premier Fahie said there was another area of contention that he had to disclose to the HoA.

"Another area that I have told those in charge of the public service is that people aren't doing their work [and] they don't discipline them. I don't like to see people fired but if they ain't working what else you could do? Yet they put them on the side, create a new position, increase the recurrent, and here we go again."

"It cannot continue that way and you fighting this and the very people who you explaining this to all the time are the ones who come right back at you saying that they have some new plans to help the service to do better, but it is going to require some new posts," he stated.


Civil servants payroll unsustainable

It was on October 24, 2017 that Mr Claude O. Skelton-Cline, while on his radio show Honestly Speaking on ZBVI 780 AM, had noted that the Territory's budget showed the payroll for government was $10M per month, which equated to $120M per year and represented 40% of the annual budget.

Mr Skelton-Cline described the payroll as unsustainable and "needs to be fixed."

The talk show host suggested that among the things can be done to cut expenditure are to send home civil servants brought out of retirement, offer more opportunities for early retirement and cut down on sending persons on extended leave of absence.

Mr Skelton-Cline was also in agreement that leadership should take a pay cut too once civil servants are to suffer a pay cut.


Oversized public service

Speaking on the 3-D Show on ZBVI 780 AM on Friday February 11, 2017 host Doug Wheatley had said some people came to him to voice some of their concerns about the oversized public service.

“They feel like the civil service is oversized, and they feel that there are too many persons in all of these government offices and wondering if really there is enough work to keep all of them busy all the time. Or whether there is only enough work to keep them busy for four hours or five hours and the other three or whatever the number is they don’t really have anything to do?” he asked.

Mr Wheatley had also stated that the people believe there should be another way to handle the too large-a- public service in the Virgin Islands.

“…And yet the cost of the public service is very high, the operations of government take a sizeable chunk out of the budget of the country and there are wondering if there is another way that can be handled rather than having such a large public service?”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×