No penalty for incompetence at top of civil service

Ivan Morgan’s article “Who are they protecting” in your June 16 issue is yet another example of bureaucratic incompetence, this time at the Centre for Health Information. This is not the first nor will it be the last instance of government agency or Crown Corporation bungling by overpaid so-called executives as long as there is no accountability, such as dismissal. Witness for example, some of the government and Crown Corporation “executives” who were summoned before the $16 million Muskrat Falls Inquiry. Nothing but pure incompetence. Some of these personnel including NALCOR executives and the former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, were reshuffled to other government departments at the same or higher salaries.

It reminds me of the high-ranking British civil servant who was responsible for overseeing security for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. He oversaw a contract awarded to a large international security firm, GS2 worth $350 million to provide 10,000 trained security personnel for the Games. Some weeks before the Games were to begin, it was revealed they were short by some 8,000 workers. There was a mad scramble, and the British Government was forced to mobilize all branches of its armed forces. In the case of the Army, some regiments who had just finished deployments in southern Afghanistan were put on the streets and at the Olympic Village and other venues, while the largest Royal Navy ship moored in the Thames, saw its personnel deployed too.

An inquiry was held after the Games chaired by a member of the House of Lords. The civil servant appeared and was grilled by this all-party parliamentary committee. When he finished answering their questions and looking quite embarrassed, a peer looked over his glasses perched at the end of his nose and said sarcastically, “Why are you still in your post?”

My question to the government of the day: Are these top-ranking personnel, who according to the then Auditor General gave themselves a 119 percent salary increase over four years a decade ago, still in their posts? If so, why?

William Butt

Conception Bay South