Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming says Government will have to re-examine the salaries of civil servants to halt the brain drain to the private sector which is offering them more attractive levels of pay.

CM Fleming

“We have a problem right now where many of civil servants are leaving and it is going to get worse in the next two and a half to three years,” Mr. Fleming stated. “We are going to have a serious bleeding. I don’t know whether we are even going to have a Clerk in this House. They are slipping away from us and going into the private sector. We realise that we have to look at salaries for the civil servants. We have to. There is no question about it.”

The Chief Minister was at the time speaking in the Anguilla House of Assembly last week when Minister of Finance, Victor Banks, introduced a motion to authorise the Government to borrow ten million East Caribbean dollars from a bank as an overdraft facility.

“The overdraft facility may have to take care of this because the idea of looking at civil servants’ salaries is critical and we have to address it quickly,” he went on. “I call on us all to come up with ideas and support the Government with some initiatives whereby we can address this serious problem. I believe in the end we might be able to hold back some of the civil servants who are about to leave.”

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