It now seems to be the norm for civil servants to continue on full pay but don’t do any work at all for government.

We have had many instances of top civil servants who get removed from their posts when a new government is elected, are not assigned to another position, but continue to draw their full salary plus benefits for years.

This latest case, however, goes back to 1999 where a civil servant has been drawing his full salary for 15 years and has not put one day’s work in for it! If it hadn’t been for the fact he will be retiring this year he would still continue to be paid for doing nothing. See today’s iNews Cayman story under iNews Briefs “Cayman unemployed civil servant has received full pay since 1999”

It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone in government that it is fine to pay someone for not doing a single day’s work for it.

The recipient doesn’t give a fig that he or she is receiving money that we provide by actually doing a full day’s work.

When is this ever going to stop?

Quite frankly it is outrageous and we should all be shouting loud and clear we will not tolerate it anymore.

If someone has to be employed he MUST be employed. If he or she doesn’t do the job because he feels it is beneath his former position then it is HIS decision to leave.

Simply allowing that person to sit at home (or probably doing other paid work) is a disgrace.

I have found some government employees receive pay for sleeping but one cannot say this employee has been asleep for 15 years?

The longest time an animal goes into hibernation is 7 months and that is a frog.

However, being ‘paid for nothing’ is not something unique to Cayman. We just don’t get angry enough about it.

In 2012 it was discovered the state of Washington, USA, paid more than 1,000 state employees to stay at home at taxpayers expense from 2006.

That cost taxpayers $13.5 million for the employees’ salaries and $3.7 million more in benefits, for a total of $17.2 million.

The employees were paid to do nothing for the state because they’d been put on home assignment while under investigation for allegations of misconduct on the job. Examples included accusations of sexually exploiting a prison inmate, stealing from the state, and harassing co-workers.

Home assignments direct the employee to remain at home during his or her normal shift so that a fair and swift investigation can take place. The employee is also directed to be near a phone in case the state agency needs his or her service.

The swift investigations were not so swift!

And the comment from the director of Washington State Human Resources to this being discovered by a local television station was, “getting paid, for extended periods of time is not appropriate.” When pressed the director said, ““It’s unacceptable. It’s plain unacceptable and it shouldn’t be.”

That was a better comment than we in Cayman have received from our headman.

I wonder just how many other civil servants in Cayman are receiving full pay and benefits for staying at home?