In this our third and final article on the subject, we revisit the key findings and recommendations of the 2015 Commission of Inquiry into the Guyana Public Service. In August 2015, the then Administration had established a Commission of Inquiry to look into the question of reforming the Public Service with the following terms of reference:
(a) To inquire into, report on, and make recommendations on the role, functions, recruitment, training, remuneration, conditions of service and other matters pertaining to personnel employed in the Guyana Public Service.
(b) To determine what measures should be taken to improve the efficiency of the Public Service in the discharge of their duties to the general public.
(c) To review the methodology used in the classification and recruitment of public servants.
(d) To examine the principles on which salaries and wages of public servants should be fixed, especially: (i) the mechanisms for determining wages and salaries; (ii) the level of consistency between the salaries and the various levels of public servants; and (iii) the basis on which remuneration for various levels of public servants are determined.
(e) To review/examine the age of retirement of public servants and make recommendations in this regard.
The Commission concluded its work and presented its report to the President on 13 May 2016. The report was laid in the National Assembly on 24 May 2016. It is most regrettable that, after eight years, most of the recommendations remain unimplemented. We cannot recall the Assembly debating the report and/or referring it to a special committee with a view to ascertaining to what extent the recommendations could be implemented. This raises the important question as to the seriousness of successive Administrations in having a politically neutral and reformed Public Service staffed by officials with professional and technical competence serving the best interest of the public.
Violation of the principles of collective bargaining
The Commission found that the across-the-board increases in wages and salaries over the years were contrary to the principles of collective bargaining, and it was wrong for persons performing below certain standards to be the paid the same as those who performed satisfactorily. Additionally, there was an urgent need to review the existing rules and regulations and for a new staff appraisal system to be introduced as a means of identifying training needs, among others. The Public Service Appellate Tribunal, which had not been in place since August 1995, also needed to be activated. The absence of such a body meant that aggrieved public servants had no alternative than to seek redress through the Courts. The Tribunal had since been reconstituted in 2017.
The Commission noted that over the last two decades, the Government had violated its contractual and legal obligations to bargain in good faith with the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU). Instead, it unilaterally imposed across-the-board salary increases of 5-8 percent without regard to individual job performance. The effect of this practice was that the salaries of persons with years of service became closely aligned with those of new recruits, thereby creating a feeling of disenchantment among employees with long years of service whose performances were not considered.
The Commission emphasized the importance of dialogue and agreement on procedures in resolving and settling differences and referred to the practice in Jamaica where there is a high degree of collaboration with the Jamaica Civil Service Association. It therefore recommended that a careful study of the Jamaican approach be undertaken with a view to ‘determining its relevance and likely contribution to improving relationships between the PSC and the GPSU in Guyana’.
Membership of the Public Service Commission
Another key recommendation was that the Public Service Commission (PSC) should at all times be constituted with suitably qualified and competent persons of unquestioned integrity who should strive to be ‘fair and impartial in the execution of their duty in consonance with the constitutional prescription that they exercise independent judgment and not be influenced by political and other external or extraneous considerations’.
Need for a Public Service law
The Commission referred to Burgess-Hunn Commission of 1966 which had recommended that the PSC and the Public Service Ministry should function under a Public Service law. This was to provide for a well-structured and capable Public Service Ministry with clearly defined functions as the premier ministry responsible for public management and administration. The status and role of the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry should also be included in the legislation that defines the official’s ‘powers, duties and responsibilities for the effective organization of departmental and ministerial machinery of Government, and human resource management, outside the constitutional remit of the Public Service Commission’. The Commission noted that the Collins Commission of 1969 supported the enactment of a Public Service law.
The Commission stated that a Public Service law is a common instrument in search for an effective public management and public administration in CARICOM countries, including Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Belize, and the Cayman Island, as well as further afield in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Accordingly, it recommended the enactment and promulgation of a Public Service law with related Regulations to promote the effective management and administration of the Public Service and to insulate it from irregular and undesirable influences, thereby enhancing its status and productive capacity. The Commission also recommended that urgent action be taken to enact a Code, along the lines proposed by Government.
Appointment of Permanent Secretaries and Regional Executive Officers
The Commission concurred with the views of many of those who have given testimonies that Permanent Secretaries and Regional Executive Officers, whose duties and responsibilities are comparable, should be appointed by the PSC, instead of the President and the Minister of Communities, respectively, as is currently the practice. In this way there will be a more integrated Public Service and greater synergies with the Administrative Regions. Accordingly, it recommended that: (i) the Constitution and other applicable laws be appropriately amended to empower the PSC to appoint Permanent Secretaries and Regional Executive Officers; (ii) all appointments to the Public Service positions be by open internal and external competitions to obtain the best from the labour market; and (iii) all appointments by the PSC be on the basis of merit, free from political influences, and meet the essential qualifications and requirements for the jobs to be performed.
Contracted employees
According to the Commission’s understanding, contracted employees were recruited and appointed to established posts in the Public Service to serve for fixed and limited periods, at the end of which their contracts came to an end or were renewed. This was unlike the situation that obtained where persons were appointed to permanent positions in the traditional Public Service. Thus, there were two categories of employees: ‘those that exist and are authorised, and those that are creatures of convenience specifically functioning behind facades intended to conceal the questionable nature of both their status and appointment’. The Commission ascertained that contracted employees tend to be appointed outside of the jurisdiction of the PSC, thereby avoiding the inputs of the latter in relation to such appointments. In such a situation, it is often possible for the predetermined choices of the Executive to prevail because the role of the [PSC] ‘may be one akin to that of a post office with the[latter] automatically attaching its approval to the names presented to it’.
The Commission expressed the view that conflict between the two types of public servants tended to be based on processes and procedures by which each type was recruited and accede to their positions, especially at senior levels. The traditional public servant was at a position of advantage in view of his/her long association with the Public Service during which the official would be exposed to different facets of working and functioning, values, rules, and nuances of the Public Service. On the other hand, the contracted public servant was at times disparaged by references to the absence of these experience factors in their records. The Commission, however, made it clear that the possession of elements of knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in given jobs is not always guaranteed by long service in a given position or organization. Discerned inadequacies and deficiencies could be corrected or attenuated by appropriate orientation and training programmes. In addition, personality and personal factors should always be considered in the recruitment and appointment processes. The Commission indicated that it is convinced that the weight of opinion is in favour of the traditional public servant.
Lack of adherence to the Westminster model
The Commission referred to the Westminster model with its emphasis on such values as impartiality and neutrality of public servants in their relations with incumbent governments. It, however, stated that in practice this model proved difficult to adhere to in Guyana because of the dominating political influences and the resultant reality that governments tend to prefer having in place ‘not neutral or neutered public servants but those who are among their enthusiastic and active supporters’. In such a scenario, differences between Government and Opposition tended to focus not so much on the contracted employees but on their numbers and the distorting effect on governance. Relevant rules and regulations were not obeyed, honoured or respected as they should, because ways and means were easily found to avoid or neutralize their influence, such as not fully constituting (or inordinate delays in doing so) agencies charged with oversight functions (such as various commissions) in relation to such bodies; appointing supporters and even relatives thereby making it difficult for them to execute their responsibility with objectivity, with the result that terms such as transparency and integrity were ineffectual. According to the Commission, this practice represented ‘a marked failure to act consistently within the law which is often quite clear. The obvious conclusion is that it is not so much the law that is at fault but practices and divergent patterns of behaviour not in keeping with the law and its spirit’.
Rehiring of senior public servants
The Commission stated that it was informed of cases where senior retired public servants were rehired on contract on ‘lucrative terms, much to the chagrin of serving traditional public servants still in service and in receipt of remuneration and benefits in no way close to those received by the newly reappointed on contract, with adverse effect on the morale and motivation of the former’. The Commission expressed the view that where certain skills are needed which are not possessed by employees of the traditional Public Service, the concerned persons should be recruited by the PSC on contracts with specific terms. However, there must be clear rules to ensure that interested persons who possess the requisite qualifications are provided with fair chances to compete with others for appointment. In this regard, the Commission felt that such vacancies should be adequately advertised and filled in a professional manner.
A professionally driven Public Service
The Commission commented that in the quest to build a career and a professionally driven Public Service with the optimum levels of staff, it is necessary for all employment of Public Service positions to be done by the PSC or under its aegis. In addition, the optimum complement of suitably qualified staff for each Ministry or Department with the right organizational needs should be evaluated and determined through human resource and organizational reviews and audits. This would identify the number of suitably qualified, experienced and skilled persons for each position as well as ‘organizational structures and lacunae in human resources, thereby helping to eliminate arbitrary resort to the employment of contract employees’. In this regard, the Commission made the following recommendations:
Absorb all contracted employees on all grades holding Public Service positions into the pensionable Public Service establishment, provided that they are suitably qualified to fill the established positions.
Restrict contracted employees/workers to high level professional skills not available in the Public Service, recruited and selected through open competition to obtain the best available candidates in the job market.
Prohibit a public servant who demits office on attaining the retirement age from being employed on contract.
Evaluate the optimum complement of suitably qualified staff for each ministry, office, division, department and unit, etc. with the right organizational structure, as determined by human resource and organizational audits.
Undertake oganizational restructuring to rationalize the status of pensionable and contract employees and to “de-bunch” employees in the salary structure.
(b) Continue to restructure the Public Service by way of a thoroughly conducted job evaluation.
(c) Provide the necessary training for personnel having responsibility for maintaining the job and salary structure.
(d) Implement mid-point differential of 20 percent for additional responsibilities.
(e) Reduce degree of overlap between all grades to avoid double and triple overlaps.
(f) Adjust the current structure to reflect an orderly and constant spread across all grades.
(g) Implement a well-constructed and managed base pay programme to ensure competitiveness and fairness in pay among positions, contribution to strategic objectives, and efficiency and effectiveness.
(h) Redesign compensation system to assist in attracting the qualified and suitable persons to the Public Service.
(i) Transfer the responsibility for wages and salaries administration from the Ministry of Finance to the Department of the Public Service.
(j) Conduct an audit of current employees’ pay arrangements, undertake a de-bunching exercise and adjust the salaries of all employees accordingly.
In its concluding remarks, the Commission stated that missing in the Public Service was a culture embodying a set of core values and standards which are accepted and treated as “sacrosanct to the extent that their breach would evoke responses of criticism and even condemnation of violators and insistence that the ‘right’ thing be done”. Adherence to such a practice would undoubtedly contribute to the establishment of a professional Public Service and would represent a welcome departure from the state of affairs in which many tend to adopt and take positions on the grounds of expediency rather than on principles.
