Dear Editor,

Your article “Do the honourable thing and go” in the Observer of December 14 is timely and falls squarely within the domain of reform.

Minister Holness, deliberately or otherwise, has ended up with the correct conclusion from a premise that is “loaded” with unproven assumptions and speculations that every government in Jamaica has repeatedly harboured at some point of its tenure.

Unfortunately, there are too many people in Jamaica who still feel that politics is bad or that “everything is not politics”. Just try to think of a country on planet Earth where there is no politics. Yes, politics is at the centre of and should drive and steer forward all relations between people living and working in any society.

Minister, I really hope that you are correct that politics, as you perceive, is at the root of our critical shortcomings in the public sector. I dare say we could then save a lot of money on proper public service reform.

Minister, please take any small sample or subset of our public servants, get rid of them, then see the extent of any “transformation” of operations. In this regard, I wonder if any such “approach” has been tried openly or covertly before. If so, what has any related outcome indicator shown?

At the end of the day, a professional is a professional. Professionals always act responsibly, and as contracted.

No, Minister, you will never a get a chance to fire or run any professional because they have failed in the “timely and satisfactory completion of their duly contracted and accepted functions and duties”. On the contrary, Sir, if you do fire or chase away any public officer easily, on the street the word would be that you have mistakenly got rid of a true and genuine professional.

What all governments in Jamaica would have faced and continue to grapple with daily is the inordinate length of time that it takes to get anything done, unfortunately where too many public servants are concerned and even to the extent that non-repentant under-performers can still remain seemingly cemented in the system of government.

Oh, how we need proper reform, not just people to tell us if what we are doing is correct.

Calvin R Gray

calvinrgray@hotmail.com