Integrity in the Public Service

Today, Wednesday, 1 February 2023, I heard a senior government administrator on Radio Anguilla explaining how loyal, efficient, and hard-working all the members of the Anguilla public service are.  They are all, apparently, undervalued and misunderstood by members of the public.  In relation to some of them, nothing can be further from the truth, as any Anguillian who regularly interacts with the public service can attest.  Members of the health and education services are notable exceptions.

The level of corruption in some other sectors of the public service over the years has been staggering.  There are several professionals in the service illegally moonlighting in the private sector.  Some have the requisite permission of the Public Service Integrity Board (PSIB) to do so.  The rest are doing it contrary to the Code of Ethics in the Public Service.

The Governor has delegated to the PSIB the task of investigating conflicts of interest when public servants apply for permission to engage in private enterprise on the side.  The PSIB in suitable cases recommends permission which is then granted by the Governor in writing.  This is a prerequisite before civil servants can apply to private establishments for after-hours work.

Some private sector employers do not employ moonlighting public servants on a permanent basis.  They are considered casual employees.  Once the second job is kept quiet and off the record, the employer does not pay either Social Security or the Interim Stabilization Levy on their wages or tips.  They don’t have to pay medical benefits or holidays with pay.  This illegal labour is a cheap substitute for full-time employees.  Social Security and the Inland Revenue are defrauded.

Some of the computer specialists in the IT Department in years past quietly offered their services for a fee to offices, supermarkets, and businesses in the private sector.  I have heard it said by senior administrators that there is nothing wrong with that.  After all, this expertise was in rare supply.  These services were said to be desperately required in the private sector.  That is nonsense.

That justification is on a par with the tongue-in-cheek excuse we heard in the 1980s when conflicts of interest first began to envelop the public service.  It was said then that civil servants who illegally provide technical and professional services in the private sector were not engaged in conflicts of interest, but in a “convergence of interests”.  There was said to be an insufficient number of qualified persons in the private sector to take on the specialist tasks that, if the island was to become modernized and efficient, trained government employees would have to contribute their expertise to ensure the objective was achieved.  So, the interests of the public and the interests of government were said to converge.

The Registered Land Act and the Land Surveyors Act provide for government surveyors to perform certain surveying jobs as part of their duties.  It is a function of the Surveying Department to ensure that missing boundary stones are replaced.  One of the government surveyors’ jobs is to do any survey necessary for the Registrar of Lands and the Director of Surveys to sort out disputed boundaries.  It is a government service for which government is expected to be paid.  There is a scale of fees set out in the Regulations.  So, if you ring the Department and request a surveyor to replace your missing boundary mark, a surveyor will turn up.  But you may then be informed that he is performing the survey on a private basis.  You pay him, not government.

A government surveyor working privately deprives the Inland Revenue Department of the prescribed fee.  This amounts to a fraud on the revenue.  Not to mention that it is contrary to the terms of his employment.  His head of department has no authority to give him permission.  Nor will he have the permission of the Public Service Integrity Board to engage in this clear conflict of interest.  And private sector surveyors are cheated out of a job.

If you dine at one of our fine restaurants, you are likely to notice that some of the waiters and waitresses are permanent civil servants moonlighting on a second job.  Sure, their enterprise in finding a way to earn enough to supplement their meagre salaries is commendable.  But it is illegal if they do not have the permission of the Governor through the PSIB.

For decades there have been accountants in the public service who offered private accounting services to local businesses.  The Governor’s permission was not sought.  This amounted to unfair competition with accountants in the private sector.  Some were known to work with private accountants who accepted their work as their own and signed off on the accounts.  This was part of the well-known Anguillian profession of “fronting”.

Some police officers moonlight, working at nights as security for restaurants, “sports bars”, illegal casinos, and other businesses on the island.  The employers love it as their businesses are protected on the cheap.  There are several private security firms that are deprived of the opportunity to provide these services.  But they are more expensive than illegally moonlighting public servants, as they have greater overheads.

One customs broker tells me there were until recently officers in the Customs Department that provided informal customs brokerage services.  Even if there were only one or two of them, think of the conflicts of interest this presented!  It was some years ago, but one day I was passing outside Radio Anguilla and saw a person in uniform hustling out of the old Customs office building.  He furtively accepted a bundle of documents from an apparent representative of a foreign developer and disappeared back into the office.

Think of the conflict of interest this involved.  The temptation must have been to under value some of these dutiable transactions on the understanding that the officer would collect a fee for the “service” he was providing.  It was not only a conflict of interest which corrupted the public servant in question, it also encouraged defrauding the revenue.

I am upset that these public servants undermined the income of the public who were in unfair competition with them for these jobs.  Private sector employees did not have the advantage of a permanent job with a regular salary to go back to every morning.

Statutory boards are not strictly part of the public service.  But they are very much public sector.  Some years ago, government announced that all statutory Board members must successfully complete a management course that government had arranged with the Community College.  There, they would be lectured in good governance, avoiding conflicts of interest, and the need for integrity in the conduct of their duties.  Gradually, this exercise petered out.

The announcement that you must be qualified before your appointment to a Board was not backed up by any law or statutory regulation.  It was therefore not enforceable.  Ministers who advise the Governor on appointments found it frustrating to deal with Boards which refused to be intimidated and which instead insisted on doing things the right way.  So, many qualified Board members were fired and replaced with the usual unqualified girlfriends and cronies who were easier to influence.

The low standard of governance that prevail in the past and probably continues is truly shocking.  Some years ago, in a well-meaning gesture that was typically ineffective, futile, and misleading, Anguilla’s Executive Council “declared” that all single use plastics were illegal, and their importation banned.  Now, as every Anguillian schoolchild knows, there is a law under which Executive Council can genuinely prohibit the importation of any commodity deemed contrary to the public good.  But instead of using the prescribed mechanism, they engaged in this useless exercise of making an announcement.

We all knew this “banning” was unenforceable from the moment it was published in the newspaper and billboards.  Printed at the foot of each announcement was the attribution, “Barbados Public Service.”  Barbadian prohibitions have no legal effect in Anguilla.  For a few months, supermarkets and groceries tried to comply.  Some still do by using biodegradable green plastic bags.  But some continue to supply non-degradable plastic bags.

It was like the “banning” of Pitbulls and Rottweilers after the baby-mauling in The Forest.  Or the prohibiting of amplified music late at night to the disturbance of the public.  Or the band of young louts we see at all hours of the day loitering around the gates of the Comprehensive School, preying on pre-pubescent schoolgirls.  Or the open running of illegal brothels and casinos.  Or the illegal sand mining from the dunes and beaches.  Or the dumping of truckloads of domestic and commercial garbage on the sides of minor roads.  Or the unauthorised emptying of the contents of septic tanks on back roads.

So, I am done with it now.  I am considering ceasing all efforts to encourage a rise in standards in the public service.  The rant may be good for reducing my blood pressure, but it is pointless.  This will, hopefully therefore, be my last essay on the topic of the lack of public service integrity in Anguilla.