PM Says “Not Now” For Work-From-Home Policy
While Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is cautioning citizens to rethink how they consume fuel given recent rises in gas prices and government’s intention to continue reducing its spend on the fuel subsidy, he has dismissed, at least for the short-term, the idea of implementing of a work from home policy for public servants to help reduce the cost of transportation.
In the Finance Minister’s budget presentation on Monday, premium and super gas saw a $1 increase, while the price of diesel climbed by 50cents.
It is government’s intention to eventually cap the fuel subsidy at $1billion per year.
With much of the working public experiencing hours long traffic during peak hours to get the office, a question was posed to the Prime Minister, in a post-budget press interview, as to whether the State would consider returning to the work from home arrangement which was utilized for most of the pandemic.
“I don’t know that we are sufficiently prepared for that to be a major initiative, largely because it requires certain technical infrastructure and a certain level of discipline,” Dr. Rowley responded.
“Because this is Trinidad, eh, and Tobago. So we not ready for a major work from home policy, because some people are not even working in the office So we have to be careful how we talk about that,” he added.
“In the private sector and also if it happens to be useful for the public sector then we are not averse to it but we have nor really embarked upon that as a major initiative. We still expect people to be at the workplace,” he said.
The fuel price increase announced on Monday was the second such announcement for 2022.