Comprehension: The Civil Service

                   Government and civil service are interrelated and therefore inseparable entities. But the performance of the latter can bring credit or discredit the former. “How can this be?” one may ask. The Government determines policy, and the body of civil servants carries it out. The finest programmes will get bogged down if the civil servant who directs their practical execution is incompetent and without dedication. Our desired rate of development must not be impeded because we are obliged to carry white-collar government employees who will put in a standard stint of office hours and then forget all about the job; who will never put a foot wrong but will never have an original idea; who will think the task performed with the writing of a letter, who will be mainly more concerned with status and prestige rather than with helping the public; whose fear of responsibility will always prompt passing on of decision and action; who will model themselves on the umbrella-carrying civil servant of an established state rather than on the pioneer worker of a new and developing country.

                   Security of employment is a fine principle and one which I endorse, but I do not think a civil servant in this country today has a greater right to security than the fisherman, the cocoa grower, the driver, the post worker, the teacher, the road labourer or market woman. I am averse to our civil servants being lodged in the state apparatus like a nail without a head; once you drive it in, you cannot pull it out. The Government must retain the right of dismissal, and the civil servant must be made to realize that he can be dismissed if he does not perform the job required of him.