Imagine Operating Your Business As If It Were The Public Service!

[dropcap]U[/dropcap]sually with frothing mouths, we are sometimes moved to remind our elected officials that we placed them in parliament to serve in our collective best interests—and never without the permission of the majority. Conveniently, not to say shamelessly, we speak of government by consensus as a proud inheritance from Whitehall, and ostensibly flawless. The greater truth is that what we refer to as the “Westminster model” is in our own peculiar backyard an anachronism that too often licenses inept majorities to hold sway over good sense and demonstrated competence.

The greater number of us refer in one breath to our elected representatives as “our leaders” and as “our servants.” At the risk of exposing one time too often the cynic in me, I freely admit I’ve yet to meet a local leader who considered himself a servant. As for the hired hands encountered on this Rock of Sages, they were all great leaders, if only in their own minds!

Consider our political predicament: every five years Saint Lucians of voting age are required by law to elect a new government. The record shows the people tend to stick with the devil they think they know over the challenger. But once in a while a miracle occurs, as in 1997 and in 2016: in the first instance the people turned out 16-1 for the untested Kenny Anthony and 11-6 for the current administration led by Allen Chastanet, whose campaign had promised the end of government business as usual. As it turned out, easier said than done. The new prime minister soon discovered his key departments were headed by known supporters of his predecessor’s party, some with six-year contracts, others with contracts renewed shortly before the 2016 elections—which guaranteed uninterrupted continuation of precisely what Chastanet and his ministers had pledged to discontinue.

It was not long before the new administration was complaining, if guardedly, about impediments in its way, further dividing an already egregiously polarized nation. We need not revisit the details; neither the validity of the allegations from both sides of the political divide. It would be more useful, I think, to invite public comment on my proposition that an

in-coming prime minister should not have to depend for his administration’s success on
top-tier public servants well known as campaigners against the very policies that got the new government elected in the first place. Also, that public service contracts should be declared no longer valid upon the arrival of a new administration. To underscore the point: it should be illegal, if it is not already so, for a government to contract public servants for longer than five years at a time.

Why should a finance minister be required to retain the services of advisors to failed governments? The private sector is unshackled by the restrictions that bind new administrations. Absenteeism, a demonstrated inability or reluctance to enhance a company’s chances of success, unauthorized moonlighting and an obvious lack of loyalty to his fellow employees seem to me good reasons for dismissal. All private sector contracts have exit clauses; unlike public service engagements. Or so the story spins.

Not so long ago the government of the day determined the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force should have a new leader. The then police commissioner was transferred to another government department. He filed a lawsuit against the Public Service Commission on the basis that the Cabinet of Saint Lucia had no authority to decide or recommend his removal or transfer. In his suit the commissioner claimed the PSC had acted illegally under the dictates of the Cabinet, not “independently and impartially” as demanded by the provisions of the Constitution.

With reference to the immediately above, the judge noted: “The Constitution requires that the powers given the Public Service Commission, to the Police Service Commission in particular, to appoint persons to hold or to act in public offices, and to make appointments on promotion, must be exercised free from the interference or influence of any kind of executive. There is room in this system for the taking of some initiatives by the Cabinet. A distinction can be drawn between acts that dictate to the commission what they can or cannot do, and the provision of a facility that the commissions are free to use or not to use as they think fit.”

Moreover: “The power to appoint a person to hold or act in the office of Commissioner of Police . . . and the power to remove the commissioner from office, shall vest in the governor general, acting in accordance with the advice of the Public Service Commission. Provided that before the commission tenders advice to the governor general with respect to the appointment of any person to hold the office of commissioner and the commission shall consult with the prime minister, and if the prime minister signifies his objection to the appointment of any person to the office the commission shall not advise the governor general to appoint that person.”

If an appointment cannot be legally considered by the governor general unless it has the prior approval of the prime minister why, then, is the prime minister restricted from making public service transfers? At this point I anticipate shouts of victimization and demands for job protection. Let me reassure the particularly concerned: I abhor victimization in all its countless guises. But can it be victimization when a prime minister has reason to believe an inherited key public servant will sabotage his efforts at fulfilling his election pledges?

I hear, too, the argument that a prime minister who feels that way about a top-tier public servant should be required to, er, justify, his concerns. Does that mean the prime minister must wait until he has learned the hardest way the consequences of sleeping with the enemy? What if, in an earlier time, he and the public servant had crossed swords that left him metaphorically scarred? More bluntly, what if the prime minister in question has every reason not to trust the inherited help? Would the PSC still insist on tangible proof that the public servant is not how he appears to the prime minister?

Of special interest to me is that while Section 86 of our Constitution provides for the appointment to and removal of persons in the public service, it is silent—as noted by the judge in the earlier cited police matter—“on the issue of transfers,” despite that transfers occur regularly between ministries. On the other hand the Constitution makes it clear that Section 86 does not apply to the Chief Elections Officer, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Director of Audit.

The court determined that a Commissioner of Police “can be removed from his post to some other post within the public service; that his post is not protected against removal in the same way as those of the Chief Elections Office, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Director of Audit.” To which I say, fair do’s. The last mentioned offices have little, if any, direct impact on the day-to-day operations of government.

As earlier stated, this piece is offered as a conversation starter. Obviously the subject is related to constitutional reform, long overdue. In all events, it should be clear the machinery of government as we know it is not working—and growing worse. What would be so wrong if it were left to incoming administrations to remove or transfer individuals at a certain level in the best interests of their election promises?

I am reminded here of a statement by the retiring chairman of the St. Lucia Labour Party in February 2007: “If you attack me, you attack my party. If you attack my leader, you attack me. If you have no respect for my leader, you have no respect for me. If you attack my leader, you become my enemy until, until death!” Allen Chastanet and his fellow campaigners for office certainly had attacked the policies of the Anthony-led SLP.

I am also reminded of a statement prior to the 2016 general elections, this time by the prime minister and party leader himself: “This election is a war between the Chastanets and the St. Lucia Labour Party!” Less than a month ago, the now opposition MP for Vieux Fort South tossed another thunderbolt at the man who had replaced him as prime minister: If Chastanet pursued his promise to investigate the “suffocating smoke around Grynberg” the Vieux Fort South MP would make certain the prime minister “inherits the whirlwind of his action!”

The question might well be asked: Will Kenny Anthony personally stir up “the whirlwind” or is he counting on assistance from public servants personally indebted to him?

Much food for thought, methinks!