Let’s suspend security of tenure now

After 47 years of Jamaica’s Independence, it is more than obvious that we have not done a good job at managing our affairs. Jamaica is badly adrift and is on the verge of becoming a failed or rogue state.

Saving our country requires strong leadership and an urgent overhaul of the public bureau-cracy, which has failed at its job to effectively manage the country’s business and deliver first-rate services. The public sector needs an infusion of talent.

Public-service employment arrangements, inherited from less complex economic times, make it difficult to import talent into the bureaucracy or to remove employees, except for the most egregious misbehaviour.

Given Jamaica’s crisis, we must declare a period of public emergency, allowing for the suspension of security of tenure for civil servants as well as an impartial assessment of the people now employed and the jobs they perform.

Part of a revolution

The bottom line is that public-sector reform must not merely be an accounting exercise for dealing with immediate fiscal problems. It is part of a revolution.

The best talent, regardless of political antecedent, must be employed to do the job.

Concomitant with the over-haul of the public sector, Government, in consultation with the private enterprise and civil society, must establish policy priorities for creating the environment conducive to social stability, economic growth and job creation.

We must demand action from the Government and hold them accountable for performance.

Similarly, the political execu-tive must retreat from its generally incompetent dabbling in bureaucratic management, leaving that job to those for whom it is intended – the public servant. The politicians must do their own job of establishing policy and holding public service managers accountable for theirs.

In this rebuilding, Prime Minister Golding must assume the role of mobiliser-in-chief, exciting Jamaicans into wanting to be part of the renewal, rather than fleeing the country.

Tough challenges

This revolution will, of course, face tough challenges, including many that require political consensus. Some of these include legislative changes to further modernise the economy, fight corruption and improve security and justice.

It is Mr Golding’s job, as prime minister, to lead this process. It is, however, neither his nor the ruling party’s alone.

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) must behave responsibly. Its own long, ineffectual period in government contributed to Jamaica’s decline. The PNP’s leadership has an obligation to contribute to the fix. They must be clear that they will be held to account if they are obstructionist.

Political parties and their leaders must no longer be allowed to manipulate poor, uneducated Jamaicans, whose votes they perennially milk for the advantage of the political class. A rejuvenated and newly assertive private sector and civil society must be vigilant and willing to speak out.

A Call to Action (Editorial Series) – Do it or leave!

Introduction:

Jamaicans have for decades complained about the state of our country – its poor economic performance, its poverty, its poor management, its crime, its violence. Many people have become fed up with the seeming inaction on the part of those we elect and the bureaucracy we pay to put things right.

Things cannot continue as they are; certainly not in these exceptional times. In a series of four editorials, The Gleaner is calling Jamaicans to action, to engage in a debate on the kind of country we want to live in, and to hold to account those who have abrogated their responsibility to manage, and to insist on a radical overhaul in the way we conduct our affairs. For it can’t continue this way.

Jamaicans are recognised as an exceptional and talented people. But for the nearly 50 years since Independence, our economy has been stagnant and the majority of our people live in poverty. Today, our country is adrift and confused.

This failure is primarily the result of public bureaucracy that has failed to perform, is managerially incompetent, and lacking in accountability.

And having been cowed by political bosses, our bureaucracy not only retreated from its central role of delivering quality service efficiently, but ceded its job to a political executive, whose role was conceived not to manage the government bureaucracy, but to establish policy and ensure accountability.

This failure of public-sector management tells in, among other things, our low quality of education, high crime rate, a justice system in which most people have lost trust, a corrupt police force, little or no economic growth and, ultimately, Jamaica’s underdevelopment.

In the 1960s, for example, Jamaica was on the lower rungs of the industrial development ladder and among the leaders on the human-development index.

Economic growth averaged six per cent a year. Singapore was still a rough-and-ready port city.

Today, Jamaica’s per capita GDP hovers at around US$5,000; Singapore’s is over US$31,000. Singapore is wealthy and orderly; Jamaica is lawless, disordered and seemingly ungovernable.

Yet, even as our bloated bureaucracy stagnates, it has been skilled at shaping a public sector to its own benefit and perpetuation. For instance, the Government’s direct wage bill is $127 billion, nearly $49,000 a year for every man, woman and child in the country, or approximately 12 cents of every dollar for all goods and services produced in Jamaica.

This, of course, does not include another $10 billion a year in non-contributory pension payments; duty concession on motor vehicles; massive leave entitlement; and for the central civil service, an anachronistic system of security of tenure. Looked at coldly, theirs, for all the complaints about pay, is essentially an easy, unproductive existence of little transparency and even less accountability.

This is unaffordable. It demands an urgent and radical overhaul. The current economic crisis and the reform of the public sector, mandated by Prime Minister Golding, provides a good opportunity that must be seized.

First, it must be made clear that transformation must be centred on fashioning the public sector to deliver services at lower costs and holding public-sector managers accountable. Jobs should be performance-based with clear systems to measure outcomes against deliverables. Employees should be paid for performance.

Anachronistic notions, such as security of tenure for public servants, must be revisited, making it easier to disengage non-performers. Indeed, we should perhaps declare a state of emergency on this matter, and urgently pass temporary legislation to allow for the necessary reforms.

While Prime Minister Golding and others in the political directorate are expected to set the vision, we expect that permanent secretaries and other senior public servants, in accordance with their job functions, must implement the plans. If they are incapable, they should go.