By Sue-Ann Wayow
MEMBER of Parliament for Princes Town Barry Padarath has slammed Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley for his recent comments that permanent secretaries were poor managers and responsible for project delays and inefficiency in the public service.
Padarath said that once again Dr Rowley was deflecting from his incompetence and that of his Cabinet by blaming permanent secretaries for the failure of his government to deliver goods and services to the people of Trinidad and Tobago.
In a press release on Tuesday, Padarath said that years of blaming the Opposition for failures no longer impacted the population’s mindset and therefore, the prime minister was now looking for new scapegoats to cast blame on for his government’s continued lack of delivery and vision.
He said, “Over the past six to almost seven years, Rowley has demotivated public servants, thrown them under the bus for the state of the economy and referred to them as lazy and unproductive.”
Padarath said, “The permanent secretaries under the Persad-Bissessar administration came from the same public service that Rowley is criticising today. It is the same public service that produced permanent secretaries that saw projects in healthcare come to fruition within budget and within time.”
Those projects included the Couva Children’s Hospital, the Scarborough Hospital and the Point Fortin Hospital, he said.
The Princes Town MP added that if permanent secretaries were not busy dealing with sexual harassment non-disclosure agreements and rental contracts to ministers under Dr Rowley’s administration, then they might have the time to focus on government projects.
Padarath said, “Permanent Secretaries are not the ones taking decisions at the Cabinet, they are not the ones formulating government policy and they are not the ones who decide on where the focus of the finances of the country will be.”
On Monday, Dr Rowley suggested that the position of permanent secretaries could be taken up by members of the private sector. He said some of these permanent secretaries lacked expertise and were placed in positions mainly based on seniority.
