Dumas: Many public servants don’t know the job

Former head of the Public Service Commission Reginald Dumas said there were people in the public service who did not know how the service worked. Dumas was responding to Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat’s statement that there was a level of productivity and poor work ethic by TT public servants.

The minister said it was becoming customary when the public interfaced with public servants, it seemed they (public) were asking for favours.

“I hear...I gather they are not very good,“ Dumas said. ”I cannot say from personal experience but it is fairly commonly said in the society that the quality of the public service has declined considerably. but in all fairness I cannot speak from personal experience because I am no longer involved.

“They altered the structure of the public service after I left. A lot of people were said to be experts in human resource development or brought in to the public service at very senior levels, people who really did not know anything about the public service. There were people, in many cases, who became permanent secretaries without knowing, so I’m told, how the public service worked and that appears to have a very negative effect on the service on the whole and the the way it operated.”

He said there was also political interference where politicians sought control to guide people in the direction to do their bidding. He said a public servant had to carry out the policy of the government whether or not the public servant agreed with the policy.

“However, when it is a question of ministers wanting this or that or you have this friend or relative or constituent in such and such a post and bringing pressure to bear, that is a different matter altogether. It is a combination of factors, not only politicians, but also the injection of so-called human resource experts who were unfamiliar with the structure and operations of the service that has helped bring about, from what I hear, a decline.”

Dumas said one had to look at the issue of discipline. He said if people were not at their desks or appointed stations to serve members of the public at a particular time, the question was why were they were not there and what was being done about it.

“If you are just going to say ‘Boy, me ent know, she ent come to work’, all you are having is a breakdown of the entire structure which is something that is affecting the whole of TT, not only the Public Service, in both the private sector and public sector.”

Current head of the Public Service Maurice Suite declined to comment on the minister’s statement saying he did not comment on statements made by ministers or politicians.