Now is time for urgent Public Service reform

On June 13, 17 former Permanent Secretaries caused to be published, via letters to the editor of the daily newspapers, their response to statements which I made at the recent Indian Arrival Day celebrations. It would appear that they did not have the benefit of reading my last article, published  June 12, which comprehensively tears apart their purported arguments. 

I wish to quote Mr Kenneth R Lalla, CMT, SC, who is a prominent lawyer and former chairman of the Public Service Commission, the Police Service Commission, the Defence Force Commissions Board and the Judicial and Legal Service Commission.

Premised on his experience and research, he stated inter alia in his authoritative text on The Public Service and Service Commissions that: “Allegations of biases and partially of civil servants have been evident prior and subsequent to the advent of the Independence of T&T and they have not been devoid of substance. The population of T&T is comprised of two major ethnic groups. 

“Afro-Trinidadian and Indo-Trinidadian, the two major groups have been polarised politically, both before and after political Independence of the country. Moreover, one of the characteristics of the Civil Service is that it has been and still is staffed predominantly by Afro-Trinidadians. Indeed, the political arena had always been dominated by two political parties—the PNM supported largely by Afro-Trinidadians and PDP, subsequently replaced by the DLP, then the ULF, all supported largely by Indo-Trinidadians.
 

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