<B>Touria PRAYAG</B>

If I were a civil servant, or better still a top civil servant, in today?s Mauritius, I?d be laughing all the way to the bank. And who would blame me? As a non civil servant, I am genuinely happy at their happiness, let this be very clear. After all, some salaries have been preposterously low and I cannot help but find commendable the attempt at enhancing the image of certain professions and giving them the dignity they deserve. Besides, if part of the community is better off, the prosperity will automatically trickle down to the rest of us. The whole country will inevitably share the fruits of those riches. Basing one?s claims on taking away from others is not exactly a sensible approach.

However, the argument that this substantial pay increase will attract or keep the right people has some element of smoke and mirrors. Working for the private or the public sector is much more a question of ethos rather than one of money. We have all witnessed people going on hunger strike because they would not swap a cushy job for one in the private sector. At a higher level, we have also seen Chairmen of parastatal bodies trading their dignity and moving heaven and earth for a position they thought the country owed them. In an élan of generosity towards the country, some of them even devoted a few days of their life working for the country for free. All in the interest of the country. Those in the private sector wondering why just need to observe the Réduit flyover at 4 o?clock, or earlier, any working day. The incessant flow of commuters heading for the Plaines Wilhems speaks volumes about the ?Lion who sleeps at 4?. The queue for public service jobs is legendary. It is now likely to be even longer, and the connections needed to get to the front of it even stronger. The socio-cultural organizations are likely to get more involved and Père Grégoire might perhaps benefit by increasing the claimed percentage.

I feel loath to show any envy at the well-deserved euphoria some civil servants are wallowing in or any resentment at the few more billions which we have to dig out of our pockets to pay for their salaries especially at a time when making the country's ends meet has become ever more of a struggle that policy makers are looking at ways to tighten their belts - or rather, ours. Nor would I go into the implications of such an increase on the Small and Medium Enterprises, some of which can hardly keep their head above water. I would simply have expected this rather juicy carrot to be accompanied by the stick of some meaningful reforms which would help bring the civil service out of its inertia and complacency and gear it towards a different mindset. I would have hoped that there would be some clearly-defined performance appraisal which would help the civil servants to contribute significantly to facilitating good economic growth and improving social development for the economic and social well being of those who will continue to work hard to pay for this largesse. Reforming, or call it modernizing, our civil service to meet the challenges facing this tiny island in a globalised world is primordial.

Unfortunately, I am still not convinced that any clear qualitative and quantitative measures will be introduced to feed into a performance appraisal system which would motivate the high performers to use their full potential to the service of the country. I have not heard of any mechanisms which will be put in place to measure one?s output.

Performance Management has proved its worth in the private sector as well as in the public sector in countries like the United States and the U.K. Its usefulness and efficaciousness are not questioned any more.

If clear measures to assess performance are introduced in the public sector here, if an attempt is made at trimming the fat and increasing productivity and above all, if as tax paying citizens, we could expect to be served better the next time we visit a government institution, I can think of many worse ways our hard-earned money could be used.