Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter—Com­mu­ni­ca­tion on Mon­day bade farewell to per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Jacque­line Charles, who has been re-as­signed to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, a no­tice from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Di­vi­sion con­firmed.

Ca­reer PS Charles re­places Kurt Mey­er, who was trans­ferred from Ed­u­ca­tion re­cent­ly.

This, af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, on Oc­to­ber 26, spoke of a PS whom he said had writ­ten a min­is­ter say­ing that the pay­ment of pub­lic ser­vants’ back­pay—to be done in De­cem­ber —couldn’t be done un­til May. Row­ley then com­plained about pub­lic ser­vants think­ing they could do as they want­ed mi­nus con­se­quences.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert sub­se­quent­ly said a lack of re­sources was why the Ed­u­ca­tion PS (Mey­er) had said pay­ment couldn’t be made un­til next May and Fi­nance was work­ing with Ed­u­ca­tion to pro­vide the ad­di­tion­al re­sources peo­ple need­ed to man­age pay­ment of the teach­ers’ back­pay.

Mey­er went on va­ca­tion af­ter his trans­fer. His re­as­sign­ment will be known when he re­sumes work.

PS Charles, who re­places Mey­er in Ed­u­ca­tion, was laud­ed by the OPM—Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in its farewell no­tice to her, which stat­ed, “With tremen­dous grat­i­tude in our hearts we ex­tend our best wish­es to PS Jacque­line Charles who has been re-as­signed to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

“Your wis­dom, de­ci­sive­ness and re­silience has brought about sig­nif­i­cant growth and trans­for­ma­tion adding con­sid­er­able val­ue to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter—Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. You have been a great teacher and your work eth­ic has in­spired many.”

Charles was at the OPM since 2021.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly didn’t re­ply to What­sApped queries on Charles’ ap­point­ment as PS. Al­ba­da Beekham will now be a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at OPM.