The National Assembly on Monday evening adopted the nominees of the Police and Public Service Commissions, paving the way for President David Granger to appoint the nominated Commissioners.
Chairman of the Standing Committee on Appointments and Social Cohesion Minister, Dr George Nor-ton, moved the motion for the adoption of the eleventh report of the Committee. That report was presented in the House in April.
The report recommended retired Assistant Commissioners of Police, Paul Slowe, Clinton Conway, Ves-ta Adams and Claire Jarvis as nominees for the Police Service Commission.
The nominations came from the Association of Former Members of the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Police Association.
The life of the last Police Service Commission came to an end in September of
has been nominated for the Public Service Commission
2017 and there have since been calls for its reconstitution. In fact, concerns were further raised after there were no promo-tions of senior officers last year.
New members of the Police Service Commission have already been selected.
It was in January of 2018, that Police Commissioner (acting) David Ramnarine had called for the body to be put in operation as soon as possible.
Before the life of the last Police Service Commission ended back in September of 2017, President Da-vid Granger had ordered in July of that year, to put a hold on the promotion of senior ranks.
Meanwhile, the House also adopted the Committee’s nominees for the Public Service Commission (PSC). Vincent Bowman and Mortimer Livan were put forward in the eighth report of the Committee which was published in March.
The life of the Public Service Commission had expired in August 2017. Last year, the President had or-dered a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Commission which found serious breaches in the opera-tions of the previous Commission.
Previously, the non-appointment of the Commission had been blamed for instances of delays in the public service system. For instance, this was one reason cited when Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Denis Jaikarran, appeared before the Public Ac-counts Committee (PAC) at the National Assembly.
The Audit Office of Guyana had found inordinate numbers of contracted employees in the system. Providing an update on the situation, the PAC was informed that they managed to regularise 102 con-tracted persons in 2016. The regional authorities claimed that confirmation of the remaining 182 con-tracted employees is dependent on the PSC.
“Before the Commission went out of commission, we were able to propose persons who were on contracted employment, be placed on the permanent establishment,” Jaikarran had said, adding that the remaining employees were employed last year.
According to the report, “Amounts totalling G$2.592 billion were expended on Employment Cost for 2016. According to the National Estimates, the regional administration had a staffing structure of 2165; however, the actual staff of the regional administration exceeded the authorised strength by sixty-four.”
In response, the head of budget agency had indicated that the regional administration has already taken steps to move its employees over to the permanent establishment and this process is expected to be completed by the end of October 2017.
It was recommended that the regional administration continue the process of moving staff over to the permanent establishment in order to minimise the number of staff employed on a contractual basis in keeping with circularised instructions.
Last month, Granger had revealed that he planned to meet Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo in a short while, where appointment of persons to both of these Commissions would be included in the agenda. This is in keeping with the Constitution of Guyana. Since then, there has been no word on a date for the meeting and Granger is presently over-seas. (Jarryl Bryan)
