New letting-go policy?

Jul 30, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The recent high turnover of senior technical staff at the Ministry of Finance has raised eyebrows.
After all, this is one of the country’s most important Ministries, which controls the country’s purse strings and which is supposed to set the country economic strategy and execute the annual Budget.
In all of the aforementioned areas, there have been serious problems, which has cast aspersions on the country’s financial management. It is this context that one has to pay attention to the problems of succession, which are likely to develop following reports, last week, in another newspaper that a number of senior officers of the Ministry of Finance were being let go.
This has raised the issue about the retirement age policy in that Ministry and in the government in general. We are now being advised that the Ministry of Finance does have such a retirement age policy, at least it does so now.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Finance has announced that it is the policy of the Ministry (not necessarily the government) that employees who reach the age of retirement, 55-60 years, will be let go unless they have a special skill or there are no suitable replacements within the Ministry (she did not say within the government or society).
According to the Ministry’s spokesperson, this is part of a policy of giving younger civil servants a chance. She also professed that the public service is not a rest home and having public servants employed after the age of retirement is counterproductive to government’s vision. She related that the Ministry is investing in employees who both by their achievements and commitment have demonstrated that they are keen to contribute to Guyana.
These are nice-sounding arguments but they need to be cross-examined for consistency and validity. The Ministry’s profession of faith in civil servants who have demonstrated the capability and commitments needs to be tested.
Based on the announcement by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Finance, it is soon to be expected that civil servants, that is, those persons who are tenured and have been employed with the consent of the Public Service Commission, whether past of present, should expect to be soon appointed to the positions of Chief Planning Officer, Deputy Finance Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the National Procurement and Tender Administration, provided that they are committed and capable.
Given this strong insistence of giving young public servants a chance, it is not to be expected that they will be bypassed in favour of contracted employees for these posts.
However, why is this policy only now operational? Moreover, why only at the Ministry of Finance? The Ministry of Finance could have promoted civil servants ahead of contracted employees since May 2015. Why, in other words, was this policy of retiring persons at age 55-60, not applicable since 2015? Why now when its sudden implementation is going to see a denuding of experienced senior staff and likely problems with succession?
The Ministry of Finance is responsible for a number of other agencies in which there are political appointees who have long reached the age of retirement and who are being favoured over younger, capable staff.
Is the retirement policy of the Ministry of Finance going to be applied to those agencies over which the Ministry has responsibility? Alternatively, will the retirees be retained on the basis that they have special skills?
No one is indispensable in the workforce. There are no persons with special skills, just special connections. Whatever skill is desired can be found in the labour market, providing you are willing to pay for these skills.
In addition, the only way the government will know whether it can afford those with the special skills is to advertise the position requiring those skills. Of course, this is still no guarantee that the best candidate will get the job. A position can be advertised and the job still handed to a crony. Since May 2015, persons have been known to be handpicked for jobs within government without any public advertising.
The government must now state whether there are two letting-go policies within the government, one at the Ministry of Finance and one for the rest of the public service.
It should state whether it is the general rule that persons who have reached either 55 or 60 years of age are required to retire unless they have special skills. The government must state how such special skills are determined and what measures are to be put in place to ensure fair employment practices.

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