By Ariana Gordon

MINISTER of State, Joseph Harmon, on Friday reaffirmed Government’s commitment to strengthening the Public Service, while calling on the Parliamentary Opposition to be solution-driven rather than creating problems.On the last day of budget debates, Harmon told the National Assembly that it was Government’s primary aim to strengthen the public sector and make it into a division that was free of political interference and one that would serve the people.

“We believe that public service has to be reformed so that it understands its role of being servants of the people,” the Minister of State said, noting that the report from the Commission of Inquiry into the public sector would pave the way forward. That report, he announced, would be presented to Government on February 29.

He added that the Public Service must be uniformed, well trained, highly motivated and properly remunerated. In keeping with Government’s agenda to strengthen the Public Sector, Minister Harmon said the Public Service Staff College would soon be opened.
At the college, students would be required to undergo six months of training, three of which would be theoretical and the remaining three practical. The students would be attached to a Public Service entity during the practical training session.

The prospective public servant would be exposed to training in many areas, the minister said, noting that over the next five years, 500 persons would be trained via the college.

“Every public servant must become computer literate,” Harmon declared, adding that the division responsible for Public Service Affairs would receive significant funding from the department’s budget. This would see senior level staff receiving tremendous help from the Canadian Department of Foreign Trade, Foreign Affairs and Development to the tune of Cdn$20M.

Additionally, Minister Harmon said Government would continue to offer scholarships to Guyanese. He said Government had moved to make the Scholarship Division “more transparent”, thus a review panel would be introduced to provide recommendations before approval by the subject minister.

Scholarships, he said, would be awarded in areas that were deemed critical to Government’s developmental agenda, and would include mining, petroleum engineering, environmental science, information technology, agriculture, and civil engineering.

Some 574 scholarships are to be handed out, of which 268 would complete their studies this year.
Speaking to Finance Minister Winston Jordan’s declaration in his January 29 budget presentation that increases in wages and salaries would be announced only following negotiations with the unions, Harmon said that under the PPP Government there was no collective bargaining.
PPP ARBITRARY ACTION
This, he said, proved frustrating for the unions, as workers were arbitrarily given an increase by the former Government. He highlighted the action of the former Government from 2001 to 2015.

“Mr Speaker, the point to be noted here is that the [PPP] administration has a track record of not negotiating with the unions in good faith, and then arbitrarily imposing an increase that they decide,” Harmon said. He said the PPP has called on the unions to demand at the very least a 50 per cent increase, but had failed to subscribe to its own recommendations while in Government.

According to Harmon, the Opposition, as opposed to highlighting problems, would be better served taking solutions to the Government. The Minister said Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo ought to stop pandering before the television cameras and be constructive.

“Don’t just gripe, come to the table and let’s talk. Where are the recommendations?” the State Minister questioned. Harmon said an invitation had been extended to the Leader of the Opposition to speak with Government on matters of national importance, but that invitation has not yet been taken up.

He also said that Government was awaiting Jagdeo’s views on the closure of the Wales Estate factory. “It is not just a matter, Mr Speaker, of going to the television and saying I know this and that, and not come to the table and talk. While some gripe, we have a nation to build; and in a global environment where there is serious competition for investment funds for development, we have to be clear about the message we are sending to the world,” he emphasised.

Harmon commended the Finance Minister for presenting a budget that presents “happiness” to the nation, while stating that over the past 23 years, the PPP administration’s vision for Guyana was blurred.

“Let us face reality: after 23 years in Government, the PPP has become tired. (They are) a tired administration, their ideas were tired, (their) vision for Guyana had become blurred,” Harmon said as he noted that the APNU-AFC coalition was on the right track to restoring confidence to Guyanese who had lost hope.