As a Caribbean national, I have become disenchanted with a political culture and belief that if you are a supporter of a Government in power that you should be the recipient of certain special privileges like getting some job or other.

I am totally against that because, in my book, that is a wrong idea and goes down a path that I do not like. I see this all over the Caribbean, and wherever it appears there is some public outcry and dissatisfaction especially when the spending (or squandering) of public funds are taken into account. They call it “jobs for the boys” in some islands.
A matter that has been the subject of much criticism over the years of the present Government in Anguilla is the employment of Special Assistants in the Ministries when there are bright and very capable Public Servants who need no “tag on” or political appointee other that the duly elected Minister to work with them.

Some of us have been really disgusted with this. Imagine, therefore, that at a recent opposition public meeting at Island Harbour a speaker got up on the rostrum and declared that he had switched his allegiance from the Government’s party because he did not get a job to work in the Ministry of Education. He claimed that he had expressed his interest to the Chief Minister who then referred him to the rookie Minister of Education. He then said he had refused to go, suggesting that the Chief Minister, who knows nothing about the Ministry of Education, should have put him into a job there. To add to the situation, the speaker published a letter in The Anguillian setting out his proposals to the Chief Minister and complained that no response had been received. I wonder why he did not obey the Chief Minister’s suggestion to see the Minister, not that I believe he should have gotten the job although his proposals might have been well-intentioned and useful.

Be that as it may, I hope that whichever Government is elected to office that there will not be any political appointments. Our public purse cannot afford it, for one, and secondly, there are, as I said earlier, some very capable Public Servants who do not need a political appointee in office with them, other than the duly-elected Minister.

I am one of those persons who like to be a contributor to society and community life. Accordingly, permit me to quote the late President of the United States: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

I rest my case.
Inquirer

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