The quality of services and facilities delivered by public sector organisations in Mauritius must be enhanced. Standards and targets are hardly set to satisfy requirements. The public expects faultless, undelayed, transparent, courteous and personalised services. It should be consulted to comment on their quality and kind, among other points.

■ <B>Judiciary</B>

Independent from the legislature and the executive, the judiciary generally performs well. Yet, the judges must not be just perceived as detached referees. Their impartiality should be actually palpable. People complain of long, and sometimes unwise, postponement of cases, heavy legal expenditure and inordinate delays in judicial pronouncements. To be effective, justice should be delivered with celerity and minimal cost. Rules and procedures need be simplified, and retarding technicalities reduced, if not eliminated. Dissuasive penalties for crimes such as assaults against women, children and tourists as well as hold-ups and burglaries should be boldly and promptly imposed.

■ <B>Local and central government </B>

Central and local government should be representative of the country?s plural society, besides being responsible, responsive, participative, transparent and caring. Authorities at the centre and grass roots should be accountable to the public through additional efficient mechanisms. The two-century or more old local government in Mauritius calls for reorganisation. The Local Government Acts 1989 and 2003, both in force partly, need to be amended. In response to the citizens? needs and aspirations at grass roots level throughout the Republic, there is need for a reinvigorated decentralised government.

■ <B> Good governance</B>

If used properly, new technologies could re-shape public sector administration. By facilitating government-citizen interface, ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and transparency, e-governance provides access to public services and across departments or organisations through electronic networks. It should enable debate and dialogue countrywise. With a suitable programme, it should help re-structure the archaic procedures and eliminate the dysfunctional system. Citizen-friendly, and thus synonymous with the right to information, transparency should prevail. The former divide between serfdom and freedom, warfare and welfare, exploitation and expectation needs to give way to an egalitarian, as much as possible, and just economic, order.

E-governance should provide a check on corrupt officials, corrupters and intermediaries. For reforming the public sector, not only modernising the delivery of services but also implementing citizen charters are prerequisites. Performance appraisal, correctly gauging the professional contribution of each public officer, is indispensable. The civil service needs to be overhauled. Instead of strategic planning and decision-making, the work is performed routinely. The officers need to develop merit, equity, effectiveness, leadership, productivity and openness. The government should translate into action the democratic fundamentals of equality of not only rights and opportunities but also treatment in socio-economic activities.

■ <B>Public and official life </B>

Duty-bound to promote the welfare of the citizens and not to further their own interests, or those of their close friends and relatives, top officials, elected or appointed, must abide by a public and enforceable code of ethics. Prompt measures should be taken to end such malpractices as disregard for the rule of law, corruption, non-compliance with tender procedures, poor planning, absence of budgetary control, accounting indiscipline, defective resource utilisation and abuse of public property. Political will is required to initiate action against corrupt public officials.

Ongoing training at all levels of officials, elected or appointed, is a must to reach new heights in efficiency and effectiveness. However, it cannot be an end in itself, consideration being given to the heavy expenditure involved, locally and abroad, borne by the public and mostly resulting in no better public sector administration. Those privileged, even if partially sponsored, to attend seminars and conferences or follow courses, overseas or at home, should in all cases and soon after their return make a report, sharing their newly acquired knowledge to their colleagues and making suggestions for the better administration or a higher output of their organisations.

■ <B> Law and order</B>

The police force should always project to the public an image of responsible law enforcement, reliability and efficiency. As the official model guaranteeing law and order, it must never show the least tendency towards corruption, fraud and any malpractice. Competence, professionalism, discipline and commitment to the rule of law are also the hallmarks of the police. There is thus need for better technology, training, surveillance and quick decisive judicial processes, allowing it to help net the guilty. Besides an improved response in case of emergencies, the police must put in increased efforts for preventive action. Constitutional and other models should be designed for conflict resolution, fostering, whenever necessary, peaceful settlement of disputes.

■ <B>Combating fraud and corruption</B>

A multi-organism approach is required to improve fraud detection, investigation and prevention. No expenditure whatsoever incurred in the public sector directly or indirectly and regardless of its nature should escape the purview of audit. Unless it is highly confidential, or except for genuine security reasons, the general public should have a right to be informed thereof through all possible means of communication. All bodies or units receiving state funds should be subjected to such audit and public scrutiny. The Director of Audit must follow up all his criticisms and recommendations, ensuring that culprits are penalised and/or exposed publicly.

■ <B>Meritocracy</B>

Recruitment of employees in both public and private sectors, should be on the basis of meritocracy. This must also apply to the appointment of chairpersons and (board) members of official commissions, parastatals or state companies, as well as advisers posted at government ministries or departments, who are all paid from public funds. Public sector officers are appointed or promoted in an old-fashioned manner. If some undergo interviews or other tests, others are appointed or promoted automatically. The focus needs be not only on paper qualifications and practical experience but also on commitment and probity. The ability to do a job effectively and efficiently must be the main concern. Instead of four service commissions for the public sector, there should be a Public Sector Service Commission (PSSC) to cater for state corporations and companies, besides civil and judicial services, disciplined forces and local government. The PSSC could have five sectoral personnel boards.

The Cabinet is constituted on ethnic, communal bases to reflect the various societal elements, although the Mauritian plural society is praised for its daily harmonious living. The government of the day must not succumb to socio-religious lobbies. Sex, community, race, culture, religion, caste, class, status or family must not hinder one?s promotion or appointment to any public position, elective or professional, and even in any particular one of the country?s other sectors, or regarding any other matter of interest to him/her. Even personal political conviction should be no bar to the nomination or revocation of a deserving person. The effectiveness of a policy for equal opportunities is as important as its implementation. In a democracy, mediocracy should recede in favour of meritocracy.

<B>Chit DUKHIRA</B>