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.
