There is likely to be more corruption in the proposed T&T Revenue Authority (TTRA). This is the view of two Canadian trade unionists who were in T&T last week on an invitation from the Public Services Association (PSA). Betty Bannon, president, Union of Taxation Employee (UTE), a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSA-C), said many of the issues that the Government is looking at, the Canadian government was also looking at in the 1990s. "Our government was looking at similar things, just like the T&T Government is looking at things like greater efficiency, the words are almost identical out of your Government's mouth. The only thing is that there was no reference to corruption by our government," Bannon said. She said creating a new agency will not automatically get rid of corruption.
"Creating an agency is not going to make corruption go away in the case that there may or may not be corruption," she said. Shane O'Brien, senior labour relations officer, UTE, said he and Bannon examined most of the TTRA-related documents. "We have read every piece of working document and there is not one thing they are going to do about this alleged corruption. Our analysis is that by the creation of this agency, it's going to be open to corruption," O'Brien said. He said when employees with long years of service are booted out and then re-hired on contracts, it opens the door for corruption because they will not be motivated to be dedicated employees. "Here you have employees who provided loyal service for many years and there might be some bad apples.
"But now what they are saying is that they are going to let all of the employees go, and those same employees who are taken back are taken back on probation and they have no benefits, no vacation. How do they expect employees to be loyal? That will open it to possibly more corruption. O'Brien said the TTRA legislation does not provide enough for accountability. "We also have code of ethics and accountability agreements and performance management contracts for our mangers that make them more accountable on how they run a programme, that's lacking in your legislation or any of the working papers we have seen," O'Brien said.
The Canadian experience
O'Brien said he and Bannon are only here to share their knowledge.
"We are not here to intervene in these affairs, we are here to share experiences and we both have experience in the revenue agency," he said. Bannon disagrees with the the Government's claims that it's using the Canadian model. "The Government has said they are using the Canada model. Well, we are here to say they haven't. There is a huge difference between what is being done here and what was done in Canada." she said. She said the similarity is that the Canadian government amalgamated Customs and Revenue into the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in 1999, but this did not last long. "Six years later, it was divided back up. The government created the Canada Border Service Agency, which was Customs and Immigration, and they changed our name to the Canada Revenue agency and we kept Excise," she said.
Employee relations
Commenting on employee relations, Bannon said even after the amalgamation of the two divisions in Canada, all employees were offered full-time jobs, not contracts. "In our situation, every single employee was given a job offer, not only a job offer, but a guaranteed job for two years under the agency. "Contrast this with the Government here who wants to fire them all, spend $350 million and hire back who they want," Bannon said. She said the voluntary separation of employment package (Vsep) offered to T&T employees are not really voluntary. "We had to read your legislation three times to comprehend the Vsep because it's not really voluntary; it's forced," she said.
With the Canadian model, she said all the workers simply moved over to the new agency. "They came to the same workplace, they went to the same desk. They had the same benefits. There were 40,000 of them who moved over," she said. Regarding pensions, Bannon said employees in T&T will lose all their years of service and will have start over when they move to the TTRA. "The legislation even said they have to develop a pension plan within two years. So for two years, are they having pensionable employment? It seems like the unions will have to start over to be recognised," she said.
Bannon said the case in Canada for the unions was different.
"In our case, it wasn't an issue for the union. It was recognised right into the agency. The only thing we had to do was a redetermination process, which is a paper process of presentation to our labour relations board," she said. O'Brien said the initial draft legislation was closer to the Canadian model than the present one. "The draft one, for example, there were the three options: move with the new agency, go into the greater public service or leave. They were very similar to our Work Force Adjustment. It was similar to what the Canadian model did to for our workforce. Obviously, the Government would have had a second thought and they removed those options," he said.