PSC needed to act earlier over dismissals

It is one thing to say your door is always open and quite another to be proactive.

The Times has learnt that the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) is not happy at the political row that has erupted over recent dismissals of senior public servants. The OPM is not happy because the dismissals are not as a result of any cost cutting exercise but for performance related issues.
How this situation was allowed to develop as a political football has annoyed the OPM who expect HOMs to manage and the PSC to be in control.
By not going public earlier, the PSC and the HOMs involved have unwittingly passed the buck upstairs to their political masters who are now under attack and do not like it one bit.
Now government is on the back foot.
That is also the position the Public Service Commissioner and some HOMs are in following the latest attack by the Opposition into senior members of the public service being dismissed.
The Opposition has been able to go on the attack because the PSC and the HOMs involved remained silent over the dismissals thereby giving the public no information so as to be able to make a distinction between a dismissal on the grounds of alleged poor performance and a dismissal on the grounds of financial cutbacks imposed by Cabinet.
Had the public been informed earlier as to the nature of the dismissals, government would not now be on the back foot trying to convey the truth to a now suspicious public. Indeed the latest cartoon by Kata says it all.
Following the Leader of the Opposition’s remarks in his recent Herald column about the dismissals, the Public Service Commissioner was strangely “silent.” He did not respond. The Times has learnt the HOM involved in one of the dismissals drafted a letter to the Editor of the Herald by way of explanation but the letter was never received. It went to the Office of the Prime Minister. It is still there.
Now, some weeks later, the Public Service Commissioner has gone public but it’s too late. The damage has already been done. By not going public earlier in response to the Leader of the Opposition’s remarks, the Public Service Commissioner now faces a situation not politically related, becoming a hot political potato.
Will the Public Service Commissioner be speaking to the HOMs concerned with these dismissals? The Times understands there are three possibly four. The Public Service Commissioner has said his door is always “open” to any HOM but it is he who must be proactive because he is in charge. He should have summoned these HOMs to his office.
Is the Minister responsible for the Public Service going to speak to the Public Service Commissioner? He could always go to the Public Service Commissioner’s office, after all, that door is always “open.”
In the current economic climate, it makes sense for the Public Service Commissioner to remind his HOMs about the increased public interest in public service staffing and movements.

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