No glory days!

Feb 17, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – The public service cannot be restored to what it never was: a source of pride. The local public service has never been a professional or even non-partisan public outfit and the quality of the services which it has provided, historically, have left much to be desired.

The colonial civil service was neither neutral nor professional. It was created for and designed to serve the interests of the colonial authorities. It reflected the unequal state of our society and was characterized by rampant discrimination in which upward social mobility was all but reserved for foreigners and, later, for the more fair-complexioned bureaucrats. The ‘Guyanization’ of the local public service upon the attainment of political Independence, however, turned into a farce and fraud. Not only was the public service expanded to the point of being an albatross on the public purse but it was perverted and distorted, including by becoming more ethnically imbalanced and aligned to the ruling party.

If there is any factor which is mainly responsible for the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the public service between 1966 and 1985, it is the then government stacking the public service with its acolytes, and then using the principle of paramountcy of the party to turn the public service into a partisan arm of the party.

Professionalism was destroyed. Senior public servants and high-ranking officers of the Disciplined Services were mandated to attend Congresses of the ruling party. Public servants were “pressured” into participating in events such as People’s Parade and May Day marches. Many of them feared that if they did not, they would be dismissed or not looked favorably upon. Meritocracy in recruitment became a casualty of politics. The possession of a party card or connections with senior party officials opened doors for employment. This allowed for the public service to be staffed by many persons lacking in ability.

The story is told of one girl who because of party connections was able to gain employment in a public corporation. She was employed as a typist but when placed in front of a typewriter was using only two finger, one from each hand, to type. Her word count was about 15 words per minute while there were many applicants who were denied employment who could type between 90-120 words per minute. Service to the public became of victim of placing square pegs in round holes.

Senior public officials behaved as if they were overlords. They would have members of the public waiting for hours outside of their office. A certain PNC strongman would make calls to heads of government agencies instructing them what to do even though those ministries did not fall under him, He even secured employment for some of his concubines.. and there were quite a few.

And generally the quality of service deteriorated. You had to know someone who knew someone in the inside before you could enjoy any expeditious service. The efficiency bred corruption.  If you wanted a passport in those days, you had to join a long line and wait for months. But there was a fellow who you could speak to and who could walk in to the passport office and you could get your passport the same day, for a fee for him of course.

The politicization of the public service intensified to the point where the public bureaucracy became so bloated that it was unsustainable. This led to mass retrenchment in the 1980’s when the effects of years of incompetence began to affect public finances. Poor wages contributed to a decline in morale within the public service. Real wages declined in the public service by some 20% between 1986 and 1991.

The APNU+AFC coalition was elected into office in 2015, with the PNCR in the driver’s seat. The same policy of overstaffing the public bureaucracy was employed. Professor Tarron Khemraj in an analysis found that when the PPPC left office there were 14,905 workers in central government. But within a mere three years of the APNU+AFC taking office, this had ballooned to 26,354 or an increase of 76.8 percent, while non-central government employment such as at GuySuCo declined by more than 40 percent.

This over-bloating of the central government had an effect on government’s overdraft. The professor found that the PPPC government inherited in August 2020 an overdraft at the Bank of Guyana of G$92.8B as opposed to G$9.3B in 2014 just prior to demitting office.  Regrettably, the Commission of Inquiry launched into the public service, three months after assuming office, did not consider the effects of these perversions on efficiency and the quality of service provided by the public service.  The public service today is indeed in need of reform. But to call for such reforms to have as its objective a return to the days of pride, is to fail to appreciate that there were never such days.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

---

• ‘Guyanization’, APNU+AFC coalition, Peeping Tom, professional, public service

---