Cabinet Approves Modernization of Recruitment & Promotion System in Public Service

Dean Flowers

Earlier this week, cabinet approved a proposal by the Ministry of the Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform and Religious Affairs to modernize the recruitment and promotion system and to revamp and modernize the Human Resource Management systems. According to the cabinet brief, the objective is to create a more professional, responsive and effective Belize Public Service.  It’s a welcoming move, says the P.S.U. President Dean Flowers, because the current system is corrupt.

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union

“There is a concept paper which attempts to look at a merit based recruitment and promotion system versus the seniority type promotion system. I think that both systems have their pros and their cons. What we are having difficulty currently is that the current system that is in place – it has been corrupted, it has been politicized and even though we have or had since to date – no commission is in place. So even though we had a Public Service Commission that should operate independently of political interference, the truth is that it has been politicized and it has been corrupted and more so under the previous administration. The long delay in appointing a commission this time around seems that that will be the same route that this administration will go considering that it is so hard for them to identify suitable people. There is a need to look at how we could get the best people not only within the public service, but to get the best people promoted. The reality is that the system has been corrupted, perverted and politicized and that’s why it has not been working. It may be that there is no need for us to change the current promotional system, however, how do we get heads of departments and supervisors and C.E.O.s on board in terms of doing the right thing, ensuring that appraisals are not subjective, but in fact very objective. How do we get them to do their appraisals? How do we get them to be honest when doing the appraisals? How do we ensure that the people who sits on the interview panel are people with integrity and the human resource expertise necessary to be able to look at candidates for employment and promotions. Those are the areas that we struggle with and as a result of that, what we have is a lot of people sitting in high middle management and senior management positions who really and truly are not cutting it.”