This Administration’s mangling of its firing of thousands of public sector workers seems destined to become Barbados’ worst ever case of public mismanagement since its settlement as a colony in 1627.
Records fail to unearth any other single Government action that comes close to, far less surpasses, the sheer abject and stupefying crassness with which the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) from the very beginning executed a series of misjumps, not “missteps”, in its quest to reduce the public sector’s wages bill.
The term “incompetent” does not accurately describe Government’s approach, since it implies ignorance of likely consequences, especially since the DLP, as recently as 1992, also had to not only institute thousands of layoffs, but also impose an eight per cent wage cut.
The question must therefore be asked as to why that retrenchment in a much more extensive and highly charged national atmosphere did not trigger the kind of widespread anguish and turmoil that has accompanied the latest such exercise.
The answer is to be found in the generally crude and insensitive manner in which Government has been currently retrenching workers, in contrast to the kind of administrative approach adopted last time.
This current exercise is a disgrace to a country hitherto so long renowned for high quality public sector management, that Prime Minister
Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines once deemed it the world’s “best managed black country”.
Given Barbados’ well established record of succeeding governments being well served by highly professional public servants, nothing can convince me
that these officers would not have given this administration the best possible information and advice on how to manage the layoff process, including how it was previously done.
I can therefore only conclude that, as was its right, Government rejected a proven method, along with the entrenched national and international principle and practice of “Last In, First Out” (LIFO) in determining those to be severed, all in the interest of narrow and shallow political expediency.
But nobody should have been surprised by the blatant abandonment of LIFO, given its two early warning indicators. One was that LIFO would be varied to ensure that no household would be without a breadwinner when retrenchment took place; the other being that the list of such workers would be subjected to political oversight, thereby making it vulnerable to manipulation, abuse and exploitation.
The fact that unions were never comprehensively given the lists of workers as had been promised and legitimately expected, should have long ago evoked strong and vociferous objections from them, thus making their belated militant posturing ring hollow.
So while there is abundant blame to share between the unions and Government over the mishmash the layoffs have become, a sizeable amount should be heaped on Freundel Stuart. Not because of his Prime Ministership but for his role as Minister of the Civil Service.
Having under PM Owen Arthur had day-to-day responsibility for management of the civil service, I am well aware of the traditional responsibility of the Ministry of the Civil Service, and especially the Personnel Administration Division (PAD), for advising central government and statutory corporations on what and how things should be done relating to staff terms and conditions of service.
For Stuart to, for example, seek to blame the NCC disaster on “flaws” in the process is really to blame himself, since he has ultimate responsibility for ensuring its transparency and fairness. Equally to be discarded is Stuart’s wish to excuse away palpable embarrassment over the National Conservation Commission (NCC) on the absence of a “proper” performance appraisal system across the public sector.
This would distract from the fact that on becoming Government in January 2008, the DLP would have inherited a Performance Review Development System (PRDS) unit in PAD, to provide an improved, modern and professional employee appraisal sector wide.
Having overseen the unit’s establishment in 2001, by 2002 the system had been introduced into eight pilot ministries and departments, accompanied by training and sensitisation.
By 2006, some 14 ministries and departments had it, with another eight agencies scheduled to come on board by April 2007. What Stuart needs to explain is what the DLP, especially since October 2010 when he assumed ministerial responsibility for the Civil Service, has done to advance and expand the same performance appraisal system.
The reality is that the performance appraisal system has suffered the same of fate of neglect as that which has befallen the entire public sector reform programme, of which PRDS is an integral part, since it was recognised that the age-old annual confidential report method was deeply flawed and therefore unsuitable for reputable human resource management decision-making.
• Glyne Murray is a retired diplomat, Cabinet minister and journalist.