Reports of a growing push back within the public sector of St. Vincent and the Grenadines are emerging, as civil servants and permanent secretaries reportedly resist improper directives and political pressure from the new New Democratic Party (NDP) administration.
According to Opposition leader, Ralph Gonsalves, who spoke on Monday regarding the political climate, public servants are expressing deep dissatisfaction with the current government. Workers are reportedly sending messages detailing their sadness over the administration’s “incompetence, the lack of understanding, the lack of knowledge… [and] the lack of caring and direction”.
At the center of this brewing rebellion is a clash over administrative due process. Government ministers are allegedly attempting to bypass official protocols to remove certain public employees from their posts. Gonsalves revealed that ministers have been informally calling workers into their offices or phoning them, directly instructing them to take forced holidays to get them out of the way.
However, senior civil servants are refusing to comply. “Some permanent secretaries are pushing back against the politicians, explicitly telling them that these actions violate proper processes and policies. This resistance has reportedly led to intense friction, with ministers becoming aggressively frustrated with the permanent secretaries”.
In some ministries, politicians are even attempting to bypass these accounting officers entirely by elevating favored executive secretaries above the permanent secretaries in an effort to push their agenda through, Gonsalves said.
Gonsalves has actively encouraged this defiance, urging public servants not to comply with informal dismissal or leave orders from politicians. He advised workers that if a minister tells them to take a holiday, they should refuse to go and instead demand formal written intervention from the Chief Personnel Officer and the Public Service Commission.
The friction within the ministries is being exacerbated by what is described as a broader climate of political victimization and bullying, he said. A highly publicized incident involved Nadia Slater, the acting director of the Agency for Public Information (API). Slater faced severe political backlash and torment which Gonsalves likened to attempts to “tar and feather her” over an inadvertent typographical error that mistakenly named Ralph Gonsalves as the current Prime Minister on a press document.
Gonsalves condemned the government’s reaction to the innocent mistake as “unacceptable bullying” driven by an insecure leadership.
Despite the growing internal resistance and reports of widespread political victimization, the formal labour organisations, including the Teachers Union and the Public Service Union, have notably remained silent on the escalating situation, the Opposition leader said.
Nevertheless, Gonsalves warned that the continued high-handedness and heartlessness of the ruling politicians are driving the public sector toward a breaking point. Noting the swift and growing discontent, he cautioned the current regime that “the day of reckoning will also come because our people will pull in the rope on this government swifter than they ever think will happen”.