Future Notes and the COI report into the public service

Dear Editor,

This is to express thanks to the usually perceptive author of ‘Future Notes’ for bringing to attention, hopefully to the present administration, the pertinent recommendations of the Report composed by the Harold Lutchman Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service, which incidentally seemed not to have been read by the sponsors. To date, it is good to see that Dr. Jeffrey thinks it is still worth reading, with a view to implementation of some cogent recommendations. Will someone please do something about Personnel ‘Officialdom’ (not even ‘Management’)? Our CARICOM colleagues must wonder why Guyana, exceptionally, has no human resources management structure or systems – as in the region, and indeed elsewhere.

Consequently, there is no concept or principle of succession planning, so proud we are of political appointees (initiates) who endured in the absence of any substantive performance evaluation system, probably because they are assured of annual across-the-board increases unrelated to performance anyhow. In this regard, there needs to be

serious reflection about the impulsive decision to grant such an award to ‘contract employees’ who benefit from gratuity every six months. Motivation could only be personal, in the absence of any systemic arrangement for working as a team and/or being proactive in delivery of results by self-imposed timelines. The decisionmakers would hardly have had substantive experience of such organisational prerogatives.

In the meantime, the pensionable public servants are concerned about the gap between their retirement age of 55 years (singular in the rest of the world) and having enough contributions to earn their NIS pensions at age 60.

Please again, return to Future Notes of Wednesday 20th January, 2021. Sincerely, E.B. John