Where’s the Independent Public Service Commission?
It’s one thing being caught between a rock and a hard place, but quite another to be caught between nice flattering words and hot air.
Well that’s just where our Civil Service is at this moment.
When it’s convenient, and more so ahead of a crucial election, our leaders shower them with praises. Danny Faure called members of the Service “hard working” and ready to be “innovative” this week in his message for Public Service Day.
He praised “those who work tirelessly to provide services that ensure that the people whom they serve have access to services required for public order, public safety, and promoting economic growth”.
Never mind that we’re still struggling to climb up the ladder of the Index of Ease of Doing Business, pathetic though that may be for a small nation of highly literate people where most of the administrative offices are within a kilometre of each other, and Seychellois pay through the nose for Internet.
But where’s the Independent Public Service Commission after over three years since it was promised?
Where’s the structured and disciplined Police Force since the British left in 1976?
A country depends on a professional civil service free of personal and political patronage, and acts with honesty, impartiality, objectivity and integrity.
On 18th October 2016, Faure in addressing the National Assembly for the first time, committed as follows: “In this new stage of our development, we will work on new policies and present a new bill on the creation of an independent Public Service Commission”. More than 3 years after, we still await the creation such an important Commission which would have the aim of transforming the public service and truly pave the way good governance, transparency and accountability, to which we pay so much lip service.
