Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 18, 2009 Editorial
It is sometimes hard to reconcile the arrogance that some people display when there is no need for such. A political leader more often than not tends to be arrogant and this is often because he or she tends to be less academically endowed than the people over whom they must preside.
However, there are those lettered Ministers and they demonstrate their confidence with themselves by being appreciative of the efforts of the people whom they serve and who must perform for the benefit of the country and to the good of the country.
There are times when Ministers are highly qualified as is the case of Dr Ashni Singh who was a Guyana Scholar or President Bharrat Jagdeo who is a trained Economist, or Prime Minister Sam Hinds who is a trained Engineer. There is also the Attorney General who is a highly trained jurist and there is also Dr Leslie Ramsammy and Dr Desrey Fox and more recently, the Home Affairs Minister Ms Carolyn Rodrigues.
We have not forgotten Ms Jennifer Webster and Dr Jennifer Westford and Ms Gail Teixeira.
Minister Robeson Benn is also a University-trained individual and one would have expected that with his confidence in his academic performance he would have been the kind of person who could have tempered his reaction to certain developments. This was certainly the case when he moved to usurp the powers of the Public Service Commission and sack the General Manager of Transport and Harbours Department and the Head of Maritime Administration—both of them senior public servants and not contract employees.
In the first instance, the appointment of the General Manager of Transport and Harbours Department is dictated by an Act. The department is also semi-autonomous although it is budgeted for under the Consolidated Funds. Such is its semi-autonomy that in one instance, a Permanent Secretary, Alan Young, actually moved to become General Manager of the Transport and Harbours Department.
All that changed on Thursday when Minister Robeson Benn moved to sack the two senior public servants. Something has to be horribly wrong with the system of administration that allows a Minister to undertake what special bodies have been set up to do. In their wisdom, the powers that be set up commissions to determine promotions and dismissals so as to avoid charges of discrimination and bias. There is the manner in which Minister Benn sent the people home on his instructions. He walked into the office of one of the people he sent packing and told the individual to demit office before the end of the afternoon. That is the height of arrogance. The Minister is a political appointee. The government structure allows for a Permanent Secretary, who is a public servant, as opposed to a politician. There was always the fear that the day would come when there would be a blurring of lines between politician and public servant. When the first observations that the government was treating permanent secretaries as though they were political appointees and terminating them with the change of each administration were made, there was always the fear that some people would become confused with this apparent blurring of the lines of authority.
This seems to have been the case this time. And the signal is clear to young public servants. Should this situation be allowed to stand, then no young person is going to display innovation or even want to work in the public service.
Indeed, there is no one who is going to want to enjoy security of tenure knowing that a politician can simply walk in and order one’s dismissal. There is more; people in the public service can now believe that they could be the victims of political discrimination and victimization and all because Minister Benn walked off the streets and attempted to sack two senior public servants.
We know that the Minister’s action was wrong and sharing this belief are so many others in the government. The Prime Minister is performing the duties of president and he knows the boundaries between the politician and the public servant. Why is he silent? Why is the Cabinet Secretary silent? They are all senior to the Works Minister and they should not preside over a wrong. They must not allow themselves to be judged harshly by the society.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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