Some 255 complaints against a number of government agencies were made to the Office of the Ombudsman during the calendar year 2005.

This was disclosed by Ombudsman, Cyril Clarke, in his annual report. Of those 255 complaints, 190 were resolved in the year under review.

In addition, of the 185 outstanding complaints which had been brought forward from previous years, some 91 had also been resolved during 2005.

The report notes that the 255 complaints came from 236 persons,119 males and 117 females. “It is quite evident that one can argue that it is statistically insignificant whether or not a complaint was made by a male or female,” Mr. Clarke noted.

“A more detailed analysis will now be made of those six public service agencies against which the greatest number of complaints were made to this office.This is being done to determine whether or not there are any conclusions that could be drawn from an analysis of this data,” he said.

The six agencies are: the Ministry of Health, 39; National Insurance Department, 37; Personnel Administration Division, 17; Police Department, 16; National Housing Corporation, 14; and the Barbados Water Authority, 9 complaints.

Mr. Clarke also noted in his report that statistics collected by the Barbados Employers’ Confederation showed that there were 22 work stoppages in the Barbados Public Service during 2005.

“These work stoppages are reported to have resulted from several reasons. However, the vast majority resulted from environmental factors,” he opined.

 

The Office of the Ombudsman was established in 1987. Legislation had been enacted some six years earlier. Its mandate is to provide a safeguard against maladministration and to protect the rights and interests of citizens.

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