Job security factor for 'inertia' in civil service - Baba Jamal

“Job security is a contributing factor to the inertia” among workers in the civil service, former Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Baba Jamal, has said.

For him, if civil service workers could be fired for low productivity, efficiency would be guaranteed, but the current “process to dismissing a civil servant is so cumbersome that nobody wants to even do it”.

The former Member of Parliament (MP) for Akwatia who was contributing to a discussion on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show was of the view: “There are no set goals, people just do what they do… There are a lot of professionals who do their work well but majority are [lackadaisical].”

He added that most public sector workers “come to work late and leave so early and Friday is virtually a holiday”.

According to him, these same individuals will not display such attitudes to work in the private sector because they know they can be fired at anytime.

However, “as a politician you can’t sack any civil servant”, adding: “You first have to get to your Chief Director and he could query the individual. When you are not satisfied with the query, the best you can do is to ask for the person’s transfer, but you cannot fire anybody. Not even the Chief Director can fire because he will have to go through a long process.

“That sense of security, the perception that ‘nobody can touch me and even when you want to touch me it will take a long time’ contributes to the inertia in the civil service.

“There is no sense of urgency and people who see you report to work at 7am as a minister regard you as someone who likes too much work. If you stay late, your own secretaries will start grumbling and these are the problems we face.”