Government does not care about Permanent Secretaries’ political affiliation - Harmon

Government does not care about Permanent Secretaries’ political affiliation – Harmon

Jun 23, 2016 News

Minister of State Joseph Harmon at a press conference, yesterday, said that the current coalition government does not care about the political affiliation, ethnicity or sexual orientation of Permanent Secretaries.

Minister of State Joseph Harmon

He said that President David Granger had stated that Permanent Secretaries are “permanent” and that they are servants of the people.
Harmon continued that it does not matter to the present government what political party they (Permanent Secretaries) are affiliated to, what their ethnic backgrounds are, their sexual orientation or their geographical location.
The Minister of State maintained that what is important is that the (government) are looking for an “efficient Public Service”, to represent the people of Guyana.
“Therefore our efforts will be to make sure the public service, particularly at the level of the Permanent Secretaries, that they are efficient.”
This, he noted, is the “major hallmark of a Permanent Secretary, that he or she is efficient, that they set high standards, that they recognize that they are the accounting officers of the Ministries and that they advise their Ministers on government’s policies.”
Harmon noted that recently the Minister of Finance had also reminded the Permanent Secretaries of their responsibilities as accounting officers to the Ministries.
The Finance Minister, he stated, had engaged in a very interactive session with the Permanent Secretaries on government programmes, stressing the need for them to speed up various public sector government investment projects.
Minister Harmon said that the Permanent Secretaries will meet more regularly in the future to facilitate discussions, which he hoped would result in recommendations for the improvement of their respective Ministries.
These meetings, he continued, would be under the Chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Presidency and will continue in the future to have meetings, not necessarily with the presence of any government Ministers.

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