Senior Reporter
jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt
With just one day to go for workers of the Inland Revenue Division and the Customs and Excise Division to decide on the future of their careers, many who submitted a response indicated they want to join the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority.
Acting Finance Minister Allyson West yesterday said 60 per cent of some 1,200 workers are yet to submit their response. But from the remaining 40 per cent, the majority have agreed to join the TTRA.
Guardian Media spoke with an employee at the IRD, who asked not to be named. He said he had already signed off on joining the TTRA and was awaiting the next step.
On July 18, the Privy Council agreed to keep a July 31 deadline for workers to choose whether they will resign from the public service, accept a transfer to the TTRA or be transferred to another office in the public service.
The Revenue Authority Act was proclaimed with an effective date of May 1, 2023, and was scheduled to take effect on August 1, 2023. Before it came into effect, however, customs officer Terrisa Dhoray challenged the legality of the act.
The PSA and Dhoray raised issues with the constitutional validity of the legislation, which seeks to replace the IRD and CED with the TTRA. The lawsuit specifically focused on Section 18 of the T&T Revenue Act, which was proclaimed by President Christine Kangaloo on April 24 last year. The section gave public servants three months to decide on their future employment upon the operationalisation of the TTRA.
Yesterday, Public Service Association (PSA) president Leroy Baptiste said unanswered questions still haunt workers’ decision-making.
In a telephone interview, Baptiste said the PSA wrote to the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Dr Daryl Dindial hoping to meet on the issue but there has been no response.
“It is just a case of workers don’t have the information. Since in April 2023, we would have met with the CPO and said these are outstanding issues,” he said.
Baptiste said when workers asked about the terms and conditions of the voluntary separation package (VSEP), answers were not forthcoming. He questioned if the VSEP even existed.
“A person cannot be asked to choose an option when the information as it relates to those options has not been given to them. That is the state of affairs that the workers are at.”
He said the PSA met with Dindial in April last year and to date, no further meeting was had about the move to the TTRA. He said the PSA will again write to the CPO hoping to have the questions answered in time for tomorrow’s deadline.
Baptiste warned against bullying workers into making a decision.
“What if they decide to take that option and you can’t find a position to commensurate, what next?”
He questioned if the workers’ salaries would be automatically updated or if the 2013 salaries they now earn would be maintained.
Baptiste accused Government of having a “take it or leave it approach,” which he said he is fighting.