The Dinosaurs in the Civil Service System
I have come to the realization that persons within the labour force have completely forgotten the main reason or rationale for the creation of the retirement age for persons in the labour force. The retirement age system was conceptualized on the premise of keeping the employment chain moving by allowing new fresh links to be added while removing the well-worked and fragile links from the system; thus preventing an employment collapse due to over-worked and broken links within the system. A support system is then set up for those retired links and relatives to have a source of survival until they are deceased, which is simply called a Pension Scheme.
However, it has become the norm for persons reaching and surpassing the retirement age to continue holding their post until they are either dead or forced out by those becoming tired of seeing their faces. This has contributed significantly to the ever increasing problems we have with unemployment in Jamaica, since the cycle of adding and removing workers through the employment system has been seriously jammed by the many qualified retired persons still working in the system with absolutely no end in sight of leaving. The common excuse that is normally provided for this choking in the employment system is that the knowledge and expertise of those senescent workers are extremely valuable, and well needed in this period of economic stagnation. What is my response to this excuse? Absolute hogwash! How have the services and expertise of those dinosaurs contributed to the stability and growth our economy and the betterment of the average citizens’ lives? Are they trying to say that those hundreds of educated young individuals leaving universities on a yearly basis aren’t qualified and competent enough to take the mantle from them? Should those educated young individuals continue to remain unemployed or accept mediocre jobs until the dinosaurs’ positions become available after they are all dead? Wow!
With all that said, and bear in mind the economic and employment free fall that our country is currently experiencing, I am hereby imploring ALL dinosaurs within the Civil Service System to contribute their part to nation building by immediately resigning from your current positions. FREE UP, FREE UP, FREE UP! Free up those positions for those many young energetic, vibrant and highly educated individuals who are sitting by the wayside of employment waiting to make their just contribution to nation building! Furthermore, the capacity of those dinosaurs to effectively exercise their expertise and experience in the offices they currently hold has become extremely irrelevant and dysfunctional to nation building and the achievement of the 2030 Vision. Hence, it is incumbent on all of them to do the honourable thing by packing their bags and sing a ‘goodbye work’ tune into the sunset of pension life. We sincerely thank those dinosaurs for the valuable contribution they made—for those who actually did something—during their years of youth and adulthood, and I wish for them all the best that their new retirement life will have in store for them. As for those who have failed to accumulate retirement savings during their years of work, then that is just too bad for you; and gives you no plausible reason for wanting to choke the employment and productive system any further than you have choked it.
In closing, let me say unambiguously that those younger incompetent and highly ineffective public servants like the Director of Public Prosecution—one which readily comes to mind—should do the honourable thing of demitting office in order to pave the way for a much more competent and effective individual. Those incompetent Civil Servants might not reach the age of retirement as yet, but their brains have indeed reached retirement due their elevated level of incompetence and ineffectiveness. May God bless you all!
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