President Anthony Carmona says the public service must offer the best salaries to attract the best workers.
He was speaking at yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony for attorney Clive Pegus to the Public Service Commission (PSC), at the Office of the President, St Ann’s.
Carmona said while everyone was speaking about the success of the Singapore model of economic development, “nobody wants to hear about the other aspect of the Singapore model, which is that you pay public servants (so) you get the best and the brightest in the public service.
“To get the best in the public service, you have to come up with the paisa (money), because the private sector is ever there to employ such persons.”
He commended Pegus for accepting his offer to serve.
Carmona said Pegus brought “a type of global vision of what is sometimes required and sometimes missing in T&T.” He said he was confident that Pegus and other PSC members would engage that vision to ensure a public service that is “efficient, competent and user-friendly.”
He told Pegus that as an attorney he would be able to put interpretative spin on the rights of individuals throughout the public service.
“The fact that you are a lawyer was a very important component in my selecting you as a member,” Carmona said.
Carmona, a former judge, said during his time on the bench, there were “many matters that came before judges that ought never to have come.”
But, he said, people took the matters to the court for determination “because simple, basic, natural justice was not invoked or followed.”
He said with Pegus’s appointment to the PSC there should be “a cutting down on the backlog of matters that will reach the courts.”
He also told the new PSC member he should retain his independence, integrity and fairness while serving.
“Simply be fair. That is all the demands this office will ask of you,” Carmona said.
He suggested that the PSC should seek to “engage in a consultative process that always arrives with a consensus in making decisions that are fair, honest and independent.”