Dear Editor,
When I joined the colonial civil service in 1950, directly out of Queen’s College, it was a requirement to be medically certified as fit for work. I recall the exhaustive examination conducted by the (Italian) Medical Officer at the Georgetown Public Hospital. He declared me fit when he ascertained that I drank the same brand of rum as he did – Polar Bear, of course a local product quite unrelated to any Scandinavian country.
I was employed as a Temporary Clerk, Class II, and inserted into the Civil Service list somewhere around (Clerk) No 182, with the distant promise of promotion, based on ‘seniority.’
When eventually I was confirmed, I had passed the century mark, having arrived at No 72.
The reason one knew of the upward movement was that the Civil Service Staff List was published dutifully every year, so that every interested party was informed of his/her status and those of all other civil servants.
Notwithstanding the ‘seniority’ programme, each civil servant – down to the clerical level – was subject to an annual performance evaluation conducted to establish eligibility for an increment, a double increment, or none at all, as finally decided by the Chief Secretary’s Office.
I demitted the service in 1958, having won a Booker Cadetship – out of a competition initiated by the predominant Booker Group of Companies in British Guiana (BG then aptly described as Booker Guiana) – aimed at recruiting management potential into their vast private sector empire.
Years later, a much revered friend and senior colleague, J A (Bertie) Orderson (now deceased) presented to me (during a liquid and loquacious interlude) the Civil Service Staff List of 1964 – containing every man and woman in the ‘permanent establishment.’ Many eminent names appeared, some of whom transitioned to political responsibilities after Guyana achieved independence in 1966.
Writing this brief on May 25, 2012, a mere few hours before the flag-raising ceremony in acknowledgement of forty-six years of independence, I thought it not a bad thing to reflect on the current state of what is now the ‘Public Service,’ and on whether, given the years of progress into information technology for one, there is a ‘database’ available, which identifies the current incumbents of what the National Estimates aver to be ‘Pensionable Posts.’
So much of the debate on the 2012 Budget has surrounded the phenomenon of ‘Contracted Employees,’ while the parties overlook the conundrum of ‘Contractors or Contractees’ being in ‘Pensionable Posts.’
It seems that 2012 may be an appropriate juncture for reviewing what the Public Service has become since independence.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
