Dear Editor,
My attention has been drawn to a letter from Mr EB John under the headline ‘Public Service Commission has always been the constitutional authority for approving the employment of public servants’ in SN of Thursday, July 28, which I have now read.
In respect of the alleged brouhaha at the GRA and any action the leader of the GPSU may or may not have taken, I said in my letter in SN of Sunday, July 24: “I do not know enough about the matter (and, indeed, do not have sufficient interest even) to offer a public, informed comment.” That remains my position. I am still not sufficiently interested in that matter to offer a public, informed comment on it. I then went on to say: “However, Mr John’s statement: ‘. . . the leader of the GPSU . . . sits as an employer on the Public Service Commission . . .’ startles me.” That statement ‒ and that statement alone – drew me to offer a comment as it seemed at variance with a long-held belief of mine. I quoted his quotation from the Revenue Authority Act 13 of 1996, I offered some information gleaned from the Constitution of Guyana, and I invited him “to examine this matter again (including the Miscellaneous and the Interpretation Articles at the end of the Constitution) and advise his current thinking on the matter of the President of the GPSU as a member of the Public Service Commission.”
You see, Editor, I have a high regard for some of Mr John’s published views and I did not know whether he, with his vast experience, including what, in his new letter, he calls “current thinking,” could have provided information that I was not aware of to cause me to change my view that when I was sitting as a member of the Teaching Service Commission I was merely an appointer and not an employer, and that the President of the GPSU is in a similar position when he sits as a member of the Public Service Commission.
Mr John seems to be using the layout of the national estimates (Teaching Service Commission (TSC) in one place and Ministry of Education (MoE) in another place) as a “statutory fact (not an opinion)” in support of his case. He seems unaware, too, that the senior vacancy notices that he refers to, published by the TSC have three distinct sections – the Directions (that the TSC controls and determines absolutely), the Criteria (that is government policy sent to the TSC for implementation), and the Vacancy List (that is the list of senior vacancies sent by MoE to the TSC for publication). Moreover, the TSC does not create salary scales.
Mr John now states: “. . . a more focused examination (vis-à-vis current thinking) will support the fact that the Public Service Commission has always been the constitutional authority for approving the employment of public servants . . .” and he goes on from there to conclude that the PSC and therefore the leader of the GPSU who sits on the PSC is the employer. That is his view, and I respect his right to be of that view.
For my part, however, I accept that the Constitution is the supreme law of Guyana. Based on the wording in the relevant articles of the Constitution (which I listed in my letter) and the wording in Article 232 in Title 10: Interpretation at the end of the Constitution (which I also mentioned in my letter) I remain of the view that though members of the Public Service Commission have authority “to appoint, remove and exercise disciplinary control over” the persons in their remit, such persons are in the service of the Government of Guyana in a civil capacity, and therefore the Government of Guyana – not the Public Service Commission ‒ is their employer.
As an aside, I don’t think that personnel managers of companies who may have similar authority to appoint, remove and exercise disciplinary control over certain persons in their companies consider themselves, ipso facto, the employers of such persons.
With respect, Editor, I have no wish to offer any further comment on this matter. Professional people can agree to disagree on a matter.
Yours faithfully,
George N Cave
