‘(The) dominant political elements in Guyana and the resulting reality (is) that governments tend to prefer to have in place not neutral or neutered public servants but those who are among their enthusiastic and active supporters. Once this pattern is established it is, in practice, difficult to eradicate, modify or change.’
The above observation came from the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service of Guyana (COI), established by the APNU+AFC government and chaired by Professor Harold Lutchman, and is relevant at a time when the APNU+AFC opposition in parliament is complaining of questionable dismissals of public servants by the new PPP/C government. However, this quarrel is only a consequence of behaviour contained in the observation, which suggests that the Westminster-type public arrangements are inappropriate for countries such as Guyana. I was invited to make a presentation to the COI because of some statements I made in ‘When partisan necessity trumped good governance’ (SN 02/09/2015).
In that article I argued that Guyana’s traditional public service arrangements originated from the British Westminster-type system in which civil servants must serve their political masters, be strictly impartial about party politics and ministerial policies and must not enter the political fray. Ministers must not ask civil servants to perform political tasks. Appointment and promotion in the civil service should not involve political considerations or be affected by a change in government. Even parliamentary committees should not ask civil servants questions in the field of political controversy. Ministers, not public servants, should defend departmental policy in public. The advice civil servants give their ministers is confidential and they should not be required to reveal it in public. Parliamentary committees must not ask questions about the conduct of particular civil servants or about the advice they give their ministers. This kind of environment is absent in Guyana and I concluded that the solution to the longstanding dilemma identified by the COI was not technical but political and thus outside its remit.
In its ably researched and well presented report, the COI reminded that within the Westminster ideological framework and the Constitution of Guyana, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has, ‘ … the power to make appointments to public offices and to remove and to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or in such offices.’ Furthermore, by article 200 (1) of the constitution, ‘The Public Service Commission shall consist of six members who shall be appointed as follows. ‘a) Three members appointed by the President acting after consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, b) Two members appointed by the President upon nomination by the National Assembly after it has consulted such bodies as appear to it to represent public officers or classes of public officers and c) If the President deems fit one other member appointed by the President acting in accordance with his own deliberate judgment.’
The COI proceeded to direct its attention to the existing configuration of the PSC to determine whether it ‘is composed of the best collection of persons qualified to successfully and meaningfully give effect to the role assigned to it in the Constitution.’ Given its opening observation, unsurprisingly it found for the most part it was not and recommended that ‘the PSC be constituted with suitably qualified and competent persons of high integrity to exercise their duties in strict fairness, impartiality, and on the basis of merit. It is desirable, as with the case of the Public Service Appellate Tribunal that members of the Commission should possess experience and show capacity in matters relating to administration, human resource management or public affairs.’ In effect, notwithstanding its observation, the COI is asking the politicians who have demonstrated over decades that their priority is to have their own supporters in strategic positions not to do so in the interest of Westminster-type constitutional compliance!
Again, the COI recognised that the constitution protects the rights of workers and that article 147 ‘(3) protects the right to collective bargaining and … neither an employer nor trade unions should be deprived of the right to enter into collective bargaining.’ It noted that the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is the legally recognized majority trade union in the public service and recommended that ‘Collective Bargaining with the GPSU and the relevant Public Authorities be restored .. [and that] the Public Authorities and the GPSU return to collective bargaining through the established, institutional and procedural arrangements in keeping with the principles of good faith in collective bargaining, and consistent with provisions of ratified ILO Convention No. 151 on Labour Relations in the Public Service.’ As noted above, as we speak the Opposition is complaining about the wrongful dismissal of workers by the PPP/C partly to allow it to put its supporters in place. When APNU+AFC came to government it followed the tradition set by the PPP/C in this and others areas, e.g. it abandoned collective bargaining and apparently the entire COI report!
John Maynard Keynes famously said, ‘Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist/(political theorists). Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.’ The constitutional directive to and construction of the PSC contain a huge problem that, unless I missed it, the COI did not comment on, but that could only be properly explained by the kind of dependence suggested by Keynes in relation to the Westminster political culture. Throughout Guyana’s entire post-independence history its politicians ‘prefer(ed) to have in place not neutral or neutered public servants but those who are among their enthusiastic and active supporters.’ Yet, the constitution gives the president the legal opportunity to determine the entire membership of the PSC. After all, ‘consultation’ is not agreement, Guyana’s National Assembly is a majoritarian instrument of which the president is his own creature and ‘own deliberate judgment’ is just that! This is particularly important where those persons the politicians ‘prefer to have in place’ will most likely be those of their ethnicity!
However, the Keynesian dependence gives way when minds are focused on self-interest and less so upon the more familiar but still essential pillars of society. A case can be made that Guyana’s post-independence constitutional history has been substantially a subversion of the Westminster political system: it is merely that what remained has been coupled to the innovations in a manner that makes the system more toxic! Secondly, there is a requirement that the president and the leader of the opposition must agree upon the appointment of the chancellor of the judiciary and the chief justice. The difficulty with this arrangement results primarily from the drafters failing to establish a tie-breaking mechanism.
There is need for fundamental constitutional, including public service, reforms and in relation to the latter the entire system needs rethinking. Guyana is a severely ethnically fractured society in which presidents and governments are essentially unaccountable and not viewed as representing the whole citizenry. The Westminster construct cannot be forced upon a situation where, by their actions over decades, the political representatives of over 80 percent of the population do not adhere to it. An effective public service must be contextualized with clear and transparent employment modalities to deliver continuous reassessment of the required mix of skills and competences. Protective constitutional mechanisms such as those that avoid decision that adversely affect the vital interests of ethnic groups are commonplace in divided societies and should be given greater weight in a future reform process.
