Complaints Commissioner, Mr Elton Georges. Photo:VINO

This, however, does not nullify the clear thrust of the Commissioner’s thinking regarding senior government functionaries in the Complaints Commission Report of 2011, which was laid in the House of Assembly during its most recent sitting held on December 17, 2012.

Georges was firm in his disclosure that one of the continuing disappointments experienced by his commission during 2010 was “the setting of bad examples in the area of response by a few very senior officials, including some Ministers, in their dealings with the public and with the Commission.

Once again, no names were called in the Commissioner’s report as he sought to highlight kinks in the circumstances surrounding the Complaints Commission.

He regarded the situation as a ‘sad’ development; especially since, according to Commissioner Georges, “it directly demonstrates that they do not subscribe to the values of good administrative practice and service delivery and so see nothing wrong with maladministration”.

Commissioner Georges was recently called out by Hon. Pickering for his “schoolboy way of writing memo, trying to frighten off people…” and encouraged to change his approach. “He and I could debate it over a cup of juice,” the Deputy Premier had said in the House of Assembly.

Hon. Pickering was critical of the Commissioner’s formal method of communication to Heads of Department, noting that a “simple question” by phone instead of a “long memo literally castigating the Head of Department” would perhaps be more suitable under the circumstances. “…it goes on the individual’s file, it’s demeaning, we can’t run a country like that,” was the conviction of Hon. Pickering.

The Complaints Commissioner subsequently issued a non-directed response wherein he noted that successive Governments have failed to appoint the key body of the Labour Code, 2010: the Arbitral Tribunal; a situation Hon. Pickering described as causing “serious difficulty” after failing to appoint a head of the tribunal even with a shortage of applicants lining up for the post.

After one applicant declined the position, Hon. Pickering told the House of Assembly (HOA), “since then we have been butting our heads trying to find somebody to head the Dispute Tribunal but [Commissioner Georges] keeps writing in his Memo about we need to refer...what we going to refer to this Tribunal when we don’t have any?”

According to the report, Georges found further disappointment in “the unwillingness of departments and public officials to redress wrongs and to put in place structural changes to promote good administration”. He singled out the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force (RVIPF) as a welcome exception.

Georges also charged in his report, that there was a lack of interest in the Commission’s work on the part of the HOA, both as an institution and as individual members. “It is small comfort,” he continued, “that this is a Caribbean wide phenomenon.”

He further identified the Service Charters as continuing evidence of “much window dressing” and never meant to be followed.

Georges also cited the “lack of sustained, targeted support from Cabinet members and the Governor” as to the implementation of his recommendations as another continuing disappointment; a failure to obtain approval to strengthen the office by funding a fourth position that would enable the Commission to hire a lawyer so as to more effectively discharge its statutory duties and produce sounder investigations and conclusions was also equally disappointing.