I have heard it said: what happens in the dark will be revealed in the light of day. That saying came home forcefully when I picked up the Official Gazette of January 19, 2012, and saw a notice which stated that a clerical officer was appointed to act as Chief Licensing Officer with effect from July 18, 2011 to August 26, 2011. Public Service wide, that officer would have superseded in excess of one thousand persons.
When this appointment was first made, the Nation carried a story on July 26, 2011 where the Chairman of the Public Service Commission disavowed any knowledge of the acting arrangements. Quoting from the Nation:
When contacted yesterday, chairman of the Public Service Commission, Besley Maycock, said he was unaware of any arrangements being made for a temporary replacement for Acting Chief Licensing Officer Virgil Knight. “Nothing has reached here yet”.
That statement was made on September 25, 2011 which is one week after the person had been acting according to the Official Gazette. The question therefore must be, if the Chairman knew nothing of the arrangements: who made the appointment?
In 1974, by virtue of the power conferred on him by section 95 of the Constitution, the Governor-General delegated the power to make acting appointments to departmental posts, in the salary scale up to and including Z9 – 1, for a period not exceeding three months, to permanent secretaries and heads of department. However, there was one major restriction: the person appointed must be the senior person eligible for such acting. The salary attached to the post of Chief Licensing Officer is S6 in the scale which at present is $7,345.20 per month. The permanent secretary can make acting appointments up to a salary of Z1 which is presently $5,709.22. It is therefore clear that the acting appointment could not be properly or legally made by the Permanent Secretary.
Since the permanent secretary could not make the acting appointment then who did? The Governor-General has delegated the power to make acting appointments, to post held by heads of department, to the Chairman of the Public Service Commission. But he claims no knowledge of the appointment prior to it being made. This appointment was made in the dark of ignoring the Public Service rules and has now come out in the light of the Official Gazette six months after the fact.
If this appointment were an aberration, I would say that people make mistakes and move on, but acting contrary to the rules has now become the norm in the Public Service. The amendments to the Public Service Act that were passed in January 2010 effectively legitimized the non observance of the rules. One would have expected that the powers that be would follow the now carefully designed rules which have the effect of lowering the morale in the service to unprecedented levels. Instead, when a situation arose that was not in their contemplation, public service managers chose to ignore the new rules too.
Hardworking and qualified public servants who do not have lodge, familial or political connections find it extremely difficult to gain promotion. A system of interviews has been introduced that is more often than not used to bypass suitable candidates. Other times they just change the academic qualifications required for the post immediately prior to publishing the advertisement for the post. As a result of these manipulations to accommodate their unqualified friends, they sometimes end up with a situation where a person requires lesser qualification to be head of department than is required for junior officers in the same department.
There are too many disgruntled public servants who were aggrieved by unfair practices. As a result, and in many cases the unfair treatment meted out to them is reflected in the service that they deliver. In order to get the Public Service functioning at acceptable levels, government must first establish a commission of enquiry to examine and report on the operations of all aspects of government service employment, including statutory boards. Failing that Government would continue to receive diminishing returns for the money that it expends on the Public Service.
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