Book Review – Guyana’s Public Service: change, conformity and continuity

May 03, 2020 APNU Column, Book Review…, Features / Columnists

(A Review of David Granger’s Guyana’s Public Service: Change, conformity and continuity)

David Granger, Guyana’s 8th Executive President, is reforming the Public Service to ensure the impartial and efficient delivery of services to the public. He initiated change because of the need to transform traditional institutional structures to conform to modern public administration practices.
This book –Guyana’s Public Service: change, conformity and continuity –advances a convincing case for the need for public administration to adapt to change while embracing higher levels of performance and maintaining continuity of the principle of political neutrality and conformity with the standards of professional efficiency.
Granger wastes little time in getting to the gravamen of change. The Public Service’s mission, according to him, is to deliver services to citizens in an efficient, non-discriminatory and timely manner. In order to achieve this, his administration set itself the objective of nurturing a highly-competent Public Service that is impartial – in the sense that it serves every citizen equitably and promptly.
Public Services around the world tend to be stigmatised for slothfulness and ponderousness. The study of public administration, as a consequence, has been dominated by the need to find solutions to improving public service performance and increasing output without losing its impartiality.
Neo-liberal models of government, unfortunately, emphasise the downsizing of big government and the outsourcing of its services. There is a strong imperative for developing countries, however, to continue to provide its citizens with public education, public health, public security and enabling public infrastructure– services which, too often, are not attractive to profit-seeking private sector providers. A professional and proficient Public Service is a prerequisite for the delivery of such services.
Guyana inherited a Westminster model Public Service on the attainment of political Independence. The colonial public administration systems were patterned after similar institutions in Britain and were characterised by two main features. The first was a presumed dichotomy between policy formulation and policy implementation. The second was the notion of neutrality which implied that public servants were obliged to serve any incumbent, or incoming, administration loyally. This model was transplanted to the colony of British Guiana.
The colonial civil service model, however, was distorted by deformities in the various cosmopolitan societies to which it was transplanted. It was stratified along the lines of education, ethnicity, poverty or religion much like the societies which it mirrored. The topmost positions in the Judiciary, Police Force and Departments of the Civil Service, for example, tended to be reserved, almost exclusively, for expatriates.
The publication of the landmark Report of the West India Royal Commission, known as the ‘Moyne Commission’ and the advent of democratic politics in the post-World War II years, generated pressure in British Guiana and the West Indies for more locals to assume senior management positions within the Civil Service, among other things.
This contributed to the process which became known as ‘Guianisation’, in the two decades preceding political independence. Friction between elected political ministers and appointed professional civil servants also hampered public administration.
The publication of another landmark Report–that of the British Guiana Constitutional Commission of 1950 known as the ‘Waddington Commission’– sought to address this latter challenge by recommending the establishment of a Public Service Commission which would comprise persons who were not involved in political activities.
The publication of yet another landmark Report –The Public Service of Guyana. Report of the Commission of Inquiry, 1969’ – known as the ‘Collins Commission’, confirmed the Commission’s responsibility for the appointment, promotion, dismissals and disciplining of public servants. The Public Service Appellate Tribunal was established to provide an inexpensive remedy to public servants who wished to appeal decisions of the Commission much later.
The Public Service Commission, despite the recommendations of these erudite reports, came to lose any pretence at impartiality by the appointment by the post – 1992 administration of politically-compromised chairmen – including former People’s Progressive Party Cabinet Ministers Brindley Benn and George Fung-On – and the refusal to appoint the Public Service Appellate Tribunal.
These appointments and other measures aimed at politicising the Public Service and undermining the Guyana Public Service Union impaired the impartiality of the institutions which were indispensable for safeguarding the principle of a meritocracy and security of tenure. The Public Service became heavily politicized and gravely demoralized as a result.
The challenge facing David Granger when he assumed the Presidency in May 2015 was to restart the process of restoring a modern Public Service capable of delivering efficient and quality services to citizens without the need to revamp the entire system. The President, in an effort to repair the damage inflicted on the Public Service during the 1992-2015 PPP administration, appointed Professor Harold Lutchman to lead another commission – The Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service – known as the ‘Lutchman Commission’, which presented its report in 2016.
This book – Guyana’s Public Service: Change, conformity and continuity–follows Granger’s previous book – Public Policy. The crisis of governance in Guyana – which he published in 2012. The two books represent a sure-footed response to the challenges of change and continuity.
A common theme which pervades the pages of this book is the insistence on the establishment of a professional and impartial Public Service. The means by which the President hopes to fashion such an institution is two-fold. First, by the providing for the existence of the systems essential to ensuring fairness in employment and, second, by emphasizing professional efficiency through advanced education.
David Granger reposes supreme confidence in the traditional institutions established to protect public servants from arbitrary demotions, dismissals and discipline – the Public Service Commission and the Public Service Appellate Tribunal. He views these institutions as playing a central role in fashioning an impartial and professional Public Service. Public servants, today, can feel better protected and insulated because of the emphasis which the President has placed on retaining these key Public Service institutions.
The President’s emphasis on the need for a proficient Public Service is reflected in his decision to establish the Bertram Collins of the Public Service. The President argues that it would be unreasonable to expect a student to leave secondary school one day and to become a competent public servant the next day. Advanced education in the College is elemental to preparing persons for entry into the Public Service.
The President, addressing the 23rd Biennial Conference of the Guyana Public Service Union, emphasised the importance of a Service equipped with the skills to adapt to a rapidly-changing working environment. He called on public servants to upgrade their education.
Public administration in Guyana has been strengthened under David Granger’s presidency. He has restored confidence and respectability to the Service. A more proficient and professional Public Service is being constructed under his watch.
David Granger’s foresight is paying dividends. The public has begun to reap the benefits of a Public Service that is now more motivated and energised to provide efficient and courteous services. Public servants are now better-paid and better educated to perform their jobs.
The Public Service is doing now what public services should have been doing a long time ago – becoming more responsive to citizens’ needs and supporting national development by expanding the delivery of services all across the country.
This book makes an important contribution to the study of public administration in a post-colonial setting. It demonstrates, compellingly, that while there might be deformities and difficulties, there is no need to dismantle the institutions which were inherited at Independence. These institutions could be reformed and improved. They have the capabilities to guarantee change, conformity and continuity in public administration.