Dear Editor,
Please allow me to respond to the letter headlined `Tenured employment of Crops and Livestock employees to be ended’ by Mr. Mervyn Williams, MP in your letter columns yesterday.
The first issue raised by Mr. Williams is in respect of the eventual movement of employees of the traditional Public Service into employment within semi-autonomous agencies. The recently approved Livestock Development Authority Act allows for the creation of a single agency – the autonomous Livestock Development Authority, which will comprise the employees of the National Dairy Development Programme, the livestock section of the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) and the livestock employees of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Crops and Livestock Department.
It is similarly envisaged that appropriate legislation will be passed to allow for a single agency to comprise the remaining staff of NARI, as well as the remaining staff of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Crops and Livestock Department, i.e. the Crop Protection and the Extension staff. This intended legislation will provide comparable benefits to the new Crops Authority employees as will be enjoyed by members of the soon to be formed Livestock Development Authority.
The US$21.9 million Agricultural Export Diversification Project which is currently being implemented is expected to make both crop production and livestock production competitive. Farmers will therefore be better able to pay for the economic costs of services necessary for the success of their enterprises. For the service agencies to be better able to pay realistic salary and benefits packages to their staff, and be better able to retain such staff in an environment where they could be easily taken aboard by the private sector, such categories of personnel must be delinked from the traditional public service. Hence the need to move in the direction we are going.
The question of duty free concession is a non-issue, since all benefits are quantifiable and staff moving to new agencies will benefit from “conditions which in total will be no less favourable”. This is not new since legislation which has brought autonomy to the Forestry Commission, the Lands and Surveys Commission, and the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority have provided welcome benefits to all staff.
The second issue is in respect of the letter written by Dr. Homenauth, NARI’s Director to Mr. Brian Sears, Chief Crops and Livestock Officer and which is seen as instructing not only Mr. Sears but other officers to whom it was copied.
The document was in fact for the guidance of a small sub-committee to be headed by Mr. Sears, to effect much needed improvement within the crop extension services which eventually would be absorbed within a larger consolidated organization. In fact what was being described was the culmination of an ongoing exercise.
It is most unfortunate that an internal document would be seized upon by persons who frequently profess to have agricultural development at heart and be made to appear as a political issue.
Yours faithfully,
Dindyal Permaul
Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Agriculture
