EDITORIAL
The new government of Prime Minister, Tillman Thomas needs to start ringing the changes within the public service so that his government can assert its authority on State power.
It is one thing to get the electorate to effect change by peaceful means as was done by the ballot on July 8 but it is a different battle ÚŠ K@ž{êrge of the SÒj in the interest of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
New Education Minister Franca Alexis-Bernadine and Police Chief, James Clarkson are the two persons who have been really up and running at full trot in recent weeks in the exercise of their functions.
The way in which Commissioner Clarkson has been ringing the changes within the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) is admirable. The COP has not fired anyone from the job but made the necessary changes at the Departmental level that sent shock waves within the hierarchy of the old regime of ex-Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Mitchell.
It is not surprising to us that Mitchell has written to his successor in office, Prime Minister Thomas to complain about the on-the-job performance of Commissioner Clarkson.
The new police chief has made some moves that neutralised those officers that the previous government was able to plant in certain key areas of the force.
The all-important spying agency known as Special Branch which was controlled by Mitchell through his surrogate, Superintendent, Anthony De Gale is being overhauled. It was the special Branch that was used to monitor the activities of known political opponents and so-called enemies of the regime like Chester Humphrey, Michael Baptiste, and Anselm Clouden among others.
The Clarkson formula will in time totally remove and isolate all those police officers who are deeply suspected of being committed to the NNP cause.
GRENADA TODAY would like to see a Clarkson-like approach adopted by the new government in handling some of the civil servants with big question marks over their heads.
How can the government continue to have the likes of Selwyn Noel in charge of the Government Information Service (GIS) given his known loyalty to the Mitchell dynasty?
It is not a question of firing Mr. Noel but adopting the Clarkson formula - putting him into another less sensitive area in the service for the time being.
The National Democratic Congress often criticised the Mitchell government whenever it effected a ministerial change among its rank especially in its dyeing days.
The theme song of Congress was: No matter how much you reshuffle a bad pack of cards, it will not work since it is a bad pack of card.
The message was clear - NDC wanted the electorate and quite rightly so, effect regime change in the country by throwing "Jonah" overboard. It is generally accepted that the current lot of Permanent Secretaries in the service are among the poorest ever seen in this country in the past thirty years.
But instead of addressing the issue in the interest of good governance and accountability, the new rulers in St. George's are seemingly engaged in the cosmetic exercise of reshuffling the bad pack similar to that of the NNP regime.
There is no need for us to single out those PS's who are very incompetent and got their positions, not based on performance but due to their close ties to the old regime.
There are a few of them whose names were often thrown in the waste paper basket whenever they came up before the Public Service Commission (PSC) for review.
These persons only managed to get appointed due to a very unfortunate incident which resulted in personnel changes within the commission. The time has come for criteria to be put in place for selecting and
appointing Permanent Secretaries and qualification and not long-term service should be the determining factor. No one without a first degree and lacking in knowledge about Public Sector reform and modernisation should be appointed to mann any government ministry.
The new government might be sewing the seeds for its own destruction and demise in years to come if it fails to address in due course the composition of the hierarchy within the service.
The reality of the situation is that Grenada like most of the islands in the Eastern Caribbean operates on the basis of a civil service government and not dictatorship like the last 13 years.
