PS CLARIFIES RETIREMENT AGE

The Permanent Secretary for the Public Service, Mr Parmesh Chand has confirmed that 2231 employees retired following the implementation of the Retirement Policy on 30/4/09.

Mr Chand said out of the 2231 retirees, approximately 250 were re-engaged to ensure continuity of service in the respective Ministries and Departments.

Further to this, the Commission had re-engaged officers with scarce skills as up to a period of a year and these officers ranged from Doctors, Nurses, Surveyors, Engineers and Technicians etc whose contracts were effective from 01/05/09 to 31/12/09.We are now also processing re-engagements for further periods.

Mr Chand said in situations where a Ministry or Department has not been able to have the post filled,the vacant position could still be occupied by the re-engaged officer upon request from the Permanent Secretary.

With regards to redundancy packages paid in cases of re-organisation and corporatization,Mr Chand said this would be looked at on a case by case basis as per Employment Relations Promulgation 2007 and only in cases where redundancy is inevitable.

He added that Civil Service Reforms are ongoing and are at the heart of the “Change for a Better Fiji” agenda of Government.

Date:14/01/10