Two weekends ago a video surfaced on the internet purporting to depict an utterly scandalous verbal tantrum by a senior public servant, directed at a subordinate functionary. The ‘performance’ by the individual, a female, was sufficiently vulgar, sufficiently outrageous to have gone viral. Not surprisingly, it set tongues wagging far and wide, in offices, in homes and on the streets. For a while at least its popularity may even have rivalled that of the ongoing parking meter brouhaha.
Once you view the video you quickly realize that this was not your routine office quarrel. It was what we in Guyana usually refer to as a ‘nasty cuss out,’ a grotesque, theatrical display attended by language that was as unseemly as it was colourful. The type of display does not even remotely belong in a workplace. Remove the physical setting and leave the vitriol and you might mistake it for a healthy contribution to a street corner brawl.
This newspaper has confirmed with a well-placed public service source that what was placed on the internet was indeed a recording of a real incident that took place some months ago in an office in a government ministry. One other thing that the video tells us is that the incident was witnessed by other members of staff (all subordinates, it seems) and that the efforts of one of those present to persuade the officer to terminate her lewd tirade ‒ and what appeared to be a menacing physical posture towards the individual who was the object of her tirade, and who, in the face of the vulgar display, appeared to be behaving with remarkable restraint ‒ only led to an escalation of her performance.
The incident, we are told, had been the subject of an internal inquiry and suffice it to say that whatever the outcome, the offending officer has remained on the job while the sanction, whatever form it took, never came even remotely close to fitting the offence. As far as we understand the incident is now passed and gone.
The verdict of several persons, including colleague public servants of the offending official is that her ‘performance’ brought the public service into disrepute. We share that view. No balanced observer is likely to question the view that the offending official behaved in a manner that raises questions about her maturity, personal decency and self-respect. As a manager, the officer has seriously compromised her right to the respect of her subordinates, a circumstance that is bound to impact negatively on her ability to manage effectively. And how does she now retain the confidence of her superiors?
If it is that this incident has simply been allowed to pass as though it were a routine misdemeanor, then one is compelled to wonder whether those responsible for handling the matter took any account of what we know to be President Granger’s oft-expressed wish that there be a significant measure of qualitative improvement in the public service, beginning with the calibre of person who functions as a public servant. We doubt very much that what we witnessed on the video recording comes even remotely close to the President’s model public servant in which case we feel compelled to ask whether, in this instance, a compelling case does not exist for at the very least some sort of attempt at vigorous behavioural rehabilitation.
