The former public service minister was personally involved in selecting students and members of the public service for scholarship awards and training programmes, according to Soyinka Grogan, Manager of the Scholarship Department of the former Public Service Ministry.
Grogan, who testified yesterday when the Public Service Commission of Inquiry (CoI) began public hearings, also said some selected individuals did not meet the criteria for the awards but the government would make representations for them.
Although Grogan did not name the minister, current PPP/C parliamentarian Dr Jennifer Westford held the post from 2001 to May this year, when the former government was voted out of office.
Under the recently-elected APNU+ AFC administration, the former ministry has become the Department of Public Service.
Grogan, who has held her current post for the past three years, told commissioners Professor Harold Lutchman, Samuel Goolsarran and Sandra Jones that her department is responsible for the processing of local and overseas scholarships as well as staff development programmes offered by donor agencies. She noted that while her department advertises openings and receives scholarship applications, it does not decide who actually receives the awards. Her department’s scope of work was limited to receiving applications and processing the information received in spreadsheet form for the then public service minister.
The spreadsheet, which profiles the applicants for the scholarships, was used by the minister to select a number of candidates, who are shortlisted. It would then fall to the department to process these individuals.
Grogan explained that in previous years there was an interviewing process overseen by a panel of educators, who would interview and shortlist candidates based on the scores they had gained. However, she said, the process has not been used for several years and she could not state what was the actual process currently being used.
While Grogan would not admit to ever being surprised by either the shortlisted or selected awardees, she did reveal under questioning that she has had cause, in the past, to bring to the attention of her supervisors that the individual selected did not fit the criteria communicated by the donor agency.
In such a case, she said, the government attempted to make representations on behalf of the selected applicant. If these representations were not successful, then a new candidate was selected, she added.
Grogan noted that the new administration has not made any changes to the process used to award scholarships. In fact, she said there was no interview process for scholarships recently awarded for the University of Guyana and the Guyana School of Agriculture and the information that was previously presented to the minister is now presented to the permanent secretary.
Grogan recommended that the present practice should be abolished and the process reverted to “doing interviews and having a panel which is external to the Public Service Department.”
She explained that this panel was composed of technical persons, who were able to interview and determine whether the person had the ability to do what he/she had applied to do.
“Years ago it worked; we had better outcomes. We had better persons coming out because we knew that they really wanted to do what they applied to do. Now, we have young persons going with the flow, they just apply because it is a nice programme but they’re not too sure that that is what they really want to do. At the interviewing level, we will be able to get from the person if they actually want to study what they are applying to study and I think it will make more sense,” Grogan said.
The CoI was set up by President David Granger to inquire into, report on, and make recommendations on the role, functions, recruitment process, remuneration and conditions of service for public servants.
It is also charged with determining what measures should be taken to improve the efficiency of the public service in the discharge of its duties to the public; to review the methodology used in the classification and recruitment of public servants; and to examine the principles on which salaries and wages should be fixed.
Its mandate also includes making recommendations on the age of retirement based on a review/examination. Hearings, which continue today, are being held at the Department of Public Service Building, at Waterloo Street, Georgetown.
