People best suited to bein cabinet

THE EDITOR: Of all the people in the country with ability and experience, the people best poised to advance and become statesmen are those bureaucrats and technocrats of sound character who are independent, have served in government, have an intimate knowledge of how the bureaucracy works, and have diligently pursued training in various fields.

These are the people best suited to be members of cabinet. This will also allow elected members of Parliament to dedicate themselves full-time in serving their constituents.

Government effectiveness and public service efficiency have been perplexing matters and, even though the country has had at least a dozen heads of the public service in 40 years, they have not been able to decipher this problem. Some pointing directly to the service commissions and others asking what is the alternative?

Over the past 25 years since the introduction of the internet, people have been exposed to a lot more information, are better informed in quicker time, are now more knowledgeable, have better insights into problems, and understand better how government works in other countries.

Of all the current parliamentarians in the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister is the most experienced. He was minister of agriculture, land and marine resources, minister of trade and industry, minister of planning and development, minister of housing and has been Prime Minister for the past eight years.

Yet, with all this experience in government, the Prime Minister has shown open frustration at not knowing how to get policy executed and how to improve efficiency in the public service.

The Prime Minister is groping in governing the country. In February last year, at the opening of Nutrimix New Generation Hatchery, he suggested that permanent secretaries be brought in from the private sector. More than one year later, the Prime Minister advocates the removal of service commissions and their replacement by a tribunal.

As outlandish as this idea might be, it also reflects a chasm in the thinking of a frustrated prime minister who is simply unsure of how to effectively govern the country.

The civil service is a career institution and the appointment of bureaucrats and technocrats as cabinet ministers provides a fund of institutional memory not contemplated even by the Northcote-Trevelyan Report (document prepared for development of the British Civil Service).

RONALD BHOLA

via e-mail