Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is hold­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) ac­count­able for what he de­scribed as the in­sub­or­di­nate be­hav­iour of some State of­fi­cials.

He cit­ed ex­am­ples in­volv­ing a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, a staff mem­ber at the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to high­light his con­cern at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Dr Row­ley promised to take ac­tion against the PSC for the fla­grant dis­obe­di­ence of the of­fi­cials with no con­se­quence.

“I just had a meet­ing with the head of the pub­lic ser­vice to find out if the pub­lic ser­vice has gone mad. Be­cause this is not a sin­gu­lar arrange­ment. First, we had oth­er sit­u­a­tions, now we have this,” he said.

“Some­thing is very wrong and I have asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for guid­ance so that the Gov­ern­ment could speak to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. So, what­ev­er Kool-Aid they drink­ing, they bet­ter un­der­stand that we are all here to serve the pub­lic,” Row­ley added.

Al­though he said he did not wish to en­gage in a back and forth with the DPP’s Of­fice, which is un­der the purview of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC), Dr Row­ley said DPP Roger Gas­pard re­fused to re­lo­cate to the Park Street, Port-of-Spain, build­ing that tax­pay­ers spent $55.5 mil­lion to lease and ren­o­vate. He said Gas­pard al­so dis­obeyed di­rect in­struc­tions to oc­cu­py the space.

“I don’t want to get in­to any fight with any­body and I don’t want to get in­to any dis­turb­ing con­ver­sa­tion. But I just find that this is un­ac­cept­able, and the Gov­ern­ment did every­thing that the Gov­ern­ment could do. And as I speak to you now, no­body has jus­ti­fied to me how this hap­pened,” he lament­ed.

He al­so de­tailed why the space was leased for three years in the first place.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Row­ley, the of­fice was se­lect­ed to fa­cil­i­tate staff at the JLSC in a bid to make the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) more ef­fi­cient.

“We had to out­fit it to suit the de­part­ment that was go­ing to go in there. We did all that. Then we heard that there were se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, we spent mon­ey strength­en­ing the fa­cil­i­ty, bul­let­proof here, this that there. We did all of that.

“At the end of the day, af­ter we spent 55 mil­lion dol­lars, a pub­lic ser­vant could de­cide ‘ah not go­ing in there’. Some­thing has to be wrong with that! And as a tax­pay­er, I am in­censed that that could hap­pen in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter fur­ther not­ed that the build­ing could not sim­ply pass hands from one agency to an­oth­er, and he said no de­fence would suf­fice for the wastage of gov­ern­ment funds.

“I have seen so-called re­ports from Spe­cial Branch which is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for that waste,” he said.

“That is not the kind of of­fice you put an­oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fice in be­cause we’re not go­ing to pay that price for oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fices. That’s not nor­mal. If that could hap­pen with that of­fice, does that set a prece­dent for oth­er of­fi­cers?”

Row­ley al­so called on the JLSC to tell the pub­lic why it re­fused to be re­lo­cat­ed to the build­ing, as he said they owe the coun­try an ex­pla­na­tion.

As for the fi­as­co that af­fect­ed the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s To­ba­go sub-of­fice, the Prime Min­is­ter said he was con­cerned when he learned that a staff mem­ber al­leged­ly re­fused a di­rect in­struc­tion to re­lo­cate to Trinidad for a month to train on new sys­tems. He said this was un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour.

“That in­con­ve­nience to the peo­ple of To­ba­go that oc­curred there ought nev­er to have hap­pened be­cause all the arrange­ments were in place for the peo­ple of To­ba­go to have a con­tin­u­ous ser­vice and every­body who was in­con­ve­nienced by that is owed an apol­o­gy from the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion be­cause these staff mem­bers are mem­bers un­der the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and peo­ple are just tak­ing the po­si­tion that they could do what­ev­er they please be­cause there are no con­se­quences. And ap­par­ent­ly, when the PNM is in of­fice, every­body bad!” he said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so not­ed that a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary act­ed in a rep­re­hen­si­ble man­ner when they re­cent­ly told Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert that pub­lic ser­vants could not re­ceive back­pay un­til May 2024.

Dr Row­ley as­sured, how­ev­er, that de­spite the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary’s state­ment, the funds will be dis­bursed in De­cem­ber, as was promised dur­ing the 2024 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion ear­li­er this month.

“Well, they don’t run this coun­try. They nev­er of­fered them­selves for pub­lic ser­vice. And the Cab­i­net will not tol­er­ate that,” he said.

“A PS say ‘no, next year may might be ear­li­est’. Well, there’s a Gov­ern­ment in this coun­try and the Gov­ern­ment will do what has to be done,” he said.

Around 37,000 pub­lic ser­vants who ac­cept­ed Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent of­fer are set to re­ceive the pay­out, which is ex­pect­ed to cost the State $1 bil­lion.