Over the past few years, a false narrative has been repeated over and over in an attempt to paint the Civil Service in an extremely negative light. The motive of those who continue to speak in this manner is fairly clear, however, their facts are, at best, fuzzy.

Let us look at the myths vs. facts of the Civil Service

Myth: “The PLP doubled the size of the Civil Service”

Facts: Size of Civil Service in 1998, pre-PLP: 5,915

Size of Civil Service in 2012, post-PLP: 7,054

Net gain of 1,139 (+19%)

Source: Department of Statistics

Those who continue to say the PLP doubled the size of the Civil Service are either:

A, Not good at arithmetic

B, Lacking historic facts

C, Content to continue to lie

Myth: “The Civil Service is lazy”

Facts: Here is a breakdown of public sector jobs:

Total filled jobs within the civil and public service sector 2014

Job Activity 2014

Bus service activities 215

Marine and ports services 166

Airport operation 39

National Post activities 164

Public administration 4,163

Higher education 114

Government hospital activities 1,710

Government medical and dental activities 6

Social work activities with accommodation 64

Social work activities without accommodation 24

Library and archives activities 31

Sporting and other recreational activities 47

Total 6,743

So are these people saying that firefighters are lazy? Are they saying that persons who work in the Attorney-General’s office are lazy? Are they saying that persons in the Department of Finance are lazy?

Out of one mouth, these people say nice catchphrases such as “One love, One Bermuda” and/or “Bermudians should work together as one people”. Then, out of the other side of their mouths, they are steadily feeding these mistruths and insults on a daily basis. They then go on further to launch multiple legal attacks against the very institutions that represent organised labour in this country.

Each Civil Service worker has a family to support, so we are now speaking of 15,000 or more persons in total that are supported by Civil Service workers. Are we fully prepared to starve nearly 33 per cent of our Bermudian people?

Many persons are now speaking about the Civil Service taking a 10 per cent pay cut. The question is, are they prepared to tell relevant businesses to lower their prices by 10 per cent?

Like almost every industrialised and developed country, the Island is facing challenging times. However, these challenges cannot and will not be solved by the present government and their supporters continuing to belittle and insult the very same Bermudians that they rely on to keep this country moving forward.