Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter in the September 5 edition of the Stabroek News in which Mr GHK Lall detailed at length his opinion that permanent secretaries should resign after a change of government.
In 1985 President Hoyte, who was troubled by the lack of managerial skills in the civil service, decided upon a training programme for civil service recruits who would be placed at the helm of various ministries after successful training. The Guyana Management Institute and the Public Service Ministry were asked to devise the curricula and the GMI was tasked with recruiting and training batches of ten cadets each. This programme, which was dubbed the ‘PS Programme’, was an intensive one-year full time grounding with two four-hour classes per day every day and lunch time and coffee breaks used for tutorial and practical sessions.
I was fortunate enough to be admitted to be one of the second batch of cadets and will forever be grateful for the training. I write this to make the point that one of the first things we learned was that permanent secretaries are civil servants and not political creatures. Persons employed at that level in the civil service can neither have nor display political affiliation. This is a fundamental principle which seems to be more honoured in the breach in recent times but, were it upheld, there would be no need for resignations upon a change in government.
Yours faithfully,
Elizabeth Alleyne
