And in related news – Minister of Works Boots Martinez has come under fire for what his political opponents characterize as mass retrenchment at his Ministry. Minister Martinez says he personally instructed senior officials in his Ministry to dismiss only two workers – but he doesn’t know about the rest. He however conceded that his ministry was flooded with open vote workers – some of whom never showed up to work. He said those workers had to be sent home – since there was nothing for them to do in the Ministry.
Anthony “Boots” Martinez, Minister of Works
“Things being what it be, people were not reporting to work. You have two things: that the Ministry in itself was terribly overstaffed with open vote workers, being nothing, no equipment to work with – people doing nothing. Like for my Ministry we barely even have money. You have trucks wanting tires, trucks wanting the basic things to keep the Ministry alive so we’re streamlining and in terms of a lot of the people got letters, it is because as I understand it, they were people that were doing nothing anyway, just going to the Ministry and collecting an envelope every Friday.”
Keith Swift,
How many people were sent home?
Anthony “Boots” Martinez,
“I don’t know.”
Keith Swift,
More than 10, more than 25, more than 50?
Anthony “Boots” Martinez,
“I know that I was responsible for the sending home of two. I don’t know but I think it was more than 25 because in Punta Gorda itself we had about seventy odd workers.”
Keith Swift,
So it could be more than a hundred?
Anthony “Boots” Martinez,
“I don’t know but I am saying to you the condition, I can talk about what I see physically – in Punta Gorda we had seventy plus workers and there were only spot for 30 workers and not even 70 workers that are performing, there are only spot for 30 maximum and the others were just going there and collecting envelopes every Friday. How in the world could we run a government in that magnitude? I have to be real here.”
Martinez says the two workers he instructed a senior manager to terminate were at the orange walk ferry and that was because of what he called insubordination.
