Wednesday 17 July 2013

TAME THE PUBLIC SERVICE, TAME THE COUNTRY

By Sam Koim

One of the biggest challenges to service delivery is how to get the public service machinery effective and productive. The public service machinery is supposed to be the reliable agent that facilitates service delivery and development. Sadly the case, I see many people including some of our politicians are not inclined to rely on the public service.

I...n general, ethical values dwindled within the public service to such an extent where what is prescribed or used to be, abnormal is now normal.

Our biggest challenge is to rid the public service of corruption, slackness, inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The cure to it, in my simplest explanation is likened to a coffee farmer and his coffee garden. Coming from a coffee growing part of this country, I know that if a coffee tree is well nourished but not yielding fruit, it requires pruning. Pruning is painful but purposeful as some branches, stems, leaves etc have to be cut off in order to enhance productivity. Pruning exposes the remaining trees to the sunlight which in turn is the essential ingredient for a tree’s productivity.

Similarly, hundreds of millions of kina are poured into the public service year after year but the fact that it is underperforming requires some serious pruning exercise. In that I mean some disciplinary measures have to be taken in the public service. If need be, some people have to be stood down, suspended, dismissed/terminated and even banned from the public service in order to restore productivity in the public service. Any rotten apples identified must be blotted out of the list of the honourables at the first instance so as to prevent their habitual corrupt behaviour from spreading through the public service.

In the Western and developed countries, when public office holders’ deeds bring disrepute to the office they occupy, they quickly resign to allow due process of law to take its course, so as to honour and uphold the integrity of the office they occupy.

In our country, while scandal after scandal has been unearthed, there is an ingrained, almost endemic resistance to owning up. In these circumstances, public office holders galvanize all the energies and means they can muster and ferociously defend themselves. They do this by numerous means, including applying for stay orders in Court which somehow the Courts readily grant, forestalling due process and frustrating good administration. Such actions have a corrosive effect on the integrity of the institutions of government.

The highest penalty under the Public Service Management Act is dismissal from the public service. Whether that means totally banning one from the public service still remains a grey area. The normal definition of dismissal doesn’t imply a total ban. As a result, I see public servants with tainted history moving from one department to the other, leaving a trail of controversy wherever they go.

Section 53 of the Public Service Management Act provides that when a person is charged for a criminal offence relating to the office he occupies, he “shall” be suspended without pay. Many public servants who have been charged by the Police are for some reasons still working in their same office or not working but still receiving their salary. Be that as it may, we also have to be thoughtful of putting innocent people on the street without pay. Absolute professionalism is needed in this area.

Sometimes, public service disciplinary processes are not successfully completed. Departmental Heads start a process and never complete it, allowing the misconducting officers to remain and grow with their improper behaviour.

The disciplinary processes involving the departmental heads, Department of Personal Management and Public Service Commission have to be reviewed and realigned to effectively deal with disciplinary issues concerning public servants.

I believe that we have to work on instilling discipline in the public service as an antidote the ills of the public service. Singapore has been successful because one of the key factors that I have discovered in their success story is the Conscription through what they call the National Service (NS), where all male Singaporean citizens and non-first-generation permanent residents who have reached the age of 18 are required to enrol for national service in the disciplined forces like the military and police for at least 2 years. Although the objective may be different, I believe that such an arrangement inculcates discipline and instil a sense of nationalism in the citizenry.

I believe breeding a disciplined public service and citizenry is the key to national development.

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