Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Immigration, Senator Arni Walters
Thirty-five of this country’s most diligent civil servants and employees, five of whom are based overseas, were honoured at a lavish ceremony held at the Barbados Hilton last Saturday, by the Ministry of Labour and Immigration for their exceptional service and hard work.
The occasion was the third annual GIVE Awards ceremony, which paid tribute to those public sector employees who exemplified appropriate workplace standards such as punctuality, productivity, good deportment, respect for authority, good relations with staff and the public and strong adherence to public sector procedures.
GIVE, an acronym for Great attitudes, Initiative, Values and Excellence, is the Ministry of Labour’s contribution to the promotion of service excellence in Barbados. The theme for the ceremony was ‘Aspire! Transform! Achieve!’
Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Immigration, Senator Arni Walters, in his brief remarks, thanked the workers for going ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ in their quest to deliver excellent service and urged them to continue being role models for their peers.
He added that public officers had a very critical role to play in Barbados’ social and economic development, and therefore they must continue to strive for excellence.
“One does not have to look far to appreciate the worth of the public officer, for we see his/her hand in infrastructural development, legislative reform and social development activities among others…we thank you the awardees for your valuable contribution… for aspiring to be model public officers and ambassadors of Barbados,” Senator Walters said.
While the Minister was satisfied with the response to the awards ceremony, he encouraged more departments to get involved in the event.
“This is a national public sector effort and I wish to encourage Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Departments, and the CEOs of statutory agencies to recognise their subordinates for their good performance by nominating them for the GIVE Award.”
The 35 awardees came from the ‘length and breadth’ of the public service, with workers from several ministries and departments being honoured.
These were the Ministries of Agriculture; Civil Service; Economic Affairs, Empowerment, Innovation, Trade, Industry and Commerce; Finance, Investment, Telecommunication and Energy; Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade; Health; Housing and Lands; Labour and Immigration; Social Care, Constituency Empowerment, Urban and Rural Development; Tourism; Transport and Works; Cabinet Office; and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Workers from the overseas employment programmes in Canada and the United States of America also received awards.
Arlee Dottin was an example of this as he received the Long Service Award for some 40 years of dedicated service to the Canadian Farm Labour Programme, while Legal Assistant, in the Land Adjudication Unit of the Ministry of Housing and Lands, Yvette Waldron, walked away with the lion’s share of the prizes.
She won the GIVE Award for excellent service in her department, as well as the National Initiative for Service Excellence (NISE) and Office of Public Sector Reform (OPSR) Awards.
The NISE and OPSR categories were introduced to the programme for the first time this year.