When I was some 20 years younger and in company with my University colleagues - both from U.G. and U.W.I. - we would argue passionately and with that great enthusiasm which is associated with young academics. We would be loud and boisterous, expletives and all.

The issues of debate largely used to touch and concern Marxist concepts. I suppose our association with leftist organisations, our tremendous zeal of wanting to change the world because we had all the answers, and the nature of the times - late 70’s early 80’s, were some of the reasons for this. I am hoping one day, when I have enough money, to regroup this team of friends and relive those days.

One topic we dealt with very frequently was the State. There were vigorous vociferous verbal battles over almost everything about the State - how it came about, what purpose and function it performed and in whose interest, how and when will it wither away.

When I entered the world of work as a State Prosecutor, a new realization dawned on me. The State will not wither away! Over the years I have become fortified in this view. If anything, it will grow in influence, and expand in its material and personnel base. This will be so because the vital public functions of formulating policy, implementing policy, and supervising the implementation and execution of such policy will remain exclusively in the State.

These apart, however, there are other roles the State plays and will continue to play which will ensure its existence long into the future. Just think about its role in the maintenance of law and order, in providing security from internal and external sources of attack, providing for a judicial system, a public education and a public health system, the conduct of foreign relations and so on, and it will at once become evident that the State is here to stay.

This being so, the big question now must be how should the State better perform its functions and play its roles so that a greater happiness is spread over this beautiful land. Guyanese will be a happier people still when every aspect of the delivery of State services, or as more popularly called - public services - improve. Though certain services have dramatically improved over the last decade many others have remained pathetic and have even grown woefully worse. Great expectations have been dashed in the area of the judicial system. There is massive disenchantment with the procurement process. Policing services remain, for very many, within the category of appalling.

There are many reasons, historical and political, for this quandary. And an understanding of these reasons will make us better appreciate why the recent heavily publicised Public Sector Modernisation Plan, at its public consultative phase, must be supported.

The best analysis yet that I have seen on the reasons for this disastrous state of affairs of our Public Service is from Tyrone Fergu-son in his book: “Structural Adjustment and Good Governance - the case of Guyana”. More particularly in his chapter 6 when discussing reform of the Public Service, during the period 1970 to 1990 this passage caught my eye. I am impressed by its honesty and a fearlessness to say it as it is. At page 178, this very erudite Guyanese wrote:

“Ministerial dominance of the Public Service became the order of the day. Ministers over time usurped control of the day to day operational tasks of administration from Permanent Secretaries and other Senior officials. The extant regulatory infrastructure and procedures of administration were ignored on the basis of an alleged inappropriateness in the prevailing context ......

Accountability of public agents was thus destroyed. Political imperatives came to imbue administrative decision-making.

These features of an increasingly politicized public bureaucracy entailed the eventual blurring of the professional and political lines of operational demarcation and functional responsibilities. A bureaucracy that had evolved a tradition of professionalism, in time with its Westminster lineage, was soon floundering under the stifling hold of an authoritarian polity.”

He had earlier argued, quoting from one Evans that:

“What is often overlooked is that the public sector too requires an enabling environment. To be effective, public service must be endowed with dignity and enjoy social recognition.

Putting private enterprise on a pedestal tends to lead to the denigration of public service, making it difficult to recruit qualified personnel for the public service and impairing the efficiency of the State”.

The Public Sector Modernisation Plan must have taken into consideration these occurrences and antecedents in its diagnostics of the existing state of affairs; and designing its blueprint for the future. Of tremendous significance to me about our Public Service presently was the damning but true findings that vital elements of governance - itemized as including, among other things, an involved and committed national leadership, active citizen participation, and transparency - “appear to have become dysfunctional in whole or in part. Others simply have never existed, while others have not evolved, collectively serving to impede efforts to improve the quality, timeliness and effectiveness of programming.”

Additionally, when it comes to programme structures, they are “illogical in the sense that they do not link resources to results and are not organized around citizen service”.

A further finding which catches the eye is the present managerial culture which is aptly described as “a command and control management culture which imposes successive levels of sign offs and inhibits managerial delegation.”

This sounds very familiar and similar to what Ferguson was talking about in earlier decades. To these truths, we must not flinch; but continue to confront so that a modern Public Service could be created.

Guyanese, especially young academics, must embrace and honestly debate and discuss these topics, issues and matters of the State. Deliberations on matters like these are far more relevant to reality than entering into the esoteric realms of the withering away of the State. Let us be loud, passionate and boisterous on these matters, expletives excluded.