PropaGanda

PSA and making sense out of the rubble

Posted by: Samiuela LV Taufa on July 17, 2007 2:52:54 PM

With downtown still empty, the rubble cleared out, but the emptiness still leary we have been getting a regular dose of patriotic fervor from government publications, but especially television broadcasts sponsored through the Prime Minister's Office. At first, the patriotic (were they patriotic or self-serving) broadcasts were interesting if not repetitive, but now they just aren't even interesting at all (even if you really wanted to learn about whatever it was they were reviewing.)

The Public Servants Association (PSA) were allowed to air a program last night, and things were quite refreshing.

1st, let's just be plain clear that I have serious differences with Mele 'Amanaki. We grew up together some time in the past but we have definitely divergent paths.

The Government broadcasts are articulate, but difficult to follow. Hey, I'll admit that probably the poetry and visualisms in the language are beyond my uneducated years. Mele 'Amanaki and Vili Vete were not only articulate but made a whole lot of simple sense (leaving your biases away for a minute or two.) Listening to Mele and Vili present their arguments you really have to worry if you were in government. If these two can make an impact with listeners (although as unlikely their petition will get another airing as opposed to government spots going on ad-nauseam) then we have another ball-game starting soon.

There were admitable blots in the presentation, like a lack of repetition of who was being boycotted. But I presume those who follow the PSA know who they are going to boycott.

The PSA brought up some serious accusations or questions that need answering from Government. The following points are what I could pick up from Mele and Vili's presentation

Common Courtesy, Contracts do not apply to the Governance of Tonga.
The efficacy of the selection process for the Public Service Commissioners.
Petitions don't mean much

Common Courtesy, Contracts do not apply to the Governance of Tonga.

A review of the signed Memorandum of Understanding between the PSA and Government/Cabinet indicates that Government have selectively ignored important sections of this document, and worse will not respond to enquiries by the PSA to why Government has chosen to ignore their agreement. (Of course, we are not hearing which parts of the agreement the PSA and Government workers have broken or not kept in good faith.)

Key positions? The redundancies were supposed to be a review of unnecessary posts, but they seem to have specifically targeted PSA members in that a good majority of the offers of redundancy can be attributed to PSA members, and more importantly there are supposedly unnecessary posts still in place because they include supporters of Government.

Key political aspects of the MOU were ignored and only afterwards were PSA executives informed on a this is what we have done, take it.

The efficacy of the selection process for the Public Service Commissioners.

Government quickly came out with a statement last week that the Public Service Commissioners are legal positions and accusations (listed with the above statement) are groundless and will be ignored (my wording)

Mele refers the points mentioned in the Government Press Release as disagreements PSA have running with Cabinet, with whom they made the Memorandum of Understanding, whilst the key problem PSA (and a number of people I have met) is that no-one believes that a sound methodology was used to select these commissioners.

Colloquially:

How in the hell do people who have always lived in the Private Sector, have no human resource management background, get pre-selected to positions of reviewing Public Servants ? Otherwise known as, are these people in place because they are good friends of the Prime Minister ?

Petitions don't mean much

800+ signatures (presumably of Public Servants, but not specifically stated) were supposedly collected in their petition to Government. In response, Government makes a press-release that is not in the true spirit of the petition.

The Minister for Public Enterprises will be ready to meet with the Executive Committee of the PSA and discuss their concerns if this can bridge the relationship between the PSA and Government.
[ref: link]

You gotta love the big state mentality in our small country. Like, it's three appointments, two nations away to grab these people and just talk it out ? Geezzzz, you don't even have to like them, or agree with them, but you can sure as hell get them if you want.

You'd think with the way we're running our hands-off between Government and detractors that it is really hard to get time for these people to get together. Really people, if you wanted to talk to the PSA executives, they are frikkin' government employees, you can force them to sit at the table with you because you run their daily agendas (or am I mistaken and Government employees in Tonga don't have executives above them, and therefore just sit under the coconut tree all day?)

Let's see:

Mele 'Amanaki works for government, Vili Vete works for government, other PSA executives work for Government.

Minister in charge of negotiations calls Minister in charge of Mele 'Amanaki:

"Set Mele's appointment so she can be in this office this afternoon, 4:00 pm"

Minister for Mele: "I think she's not going to be in the office"

"Did you hear me say please?"

Minister in charge of negotiations calls Minister in charge of Vili Vete:

"Set Vili's appointment so he can be in this office this afternoon, 4:00 pm"

Minister for Vili Vete: "Sorry dude, we suspended him for some reason"

"Fishcakes Foobar, well send one of those drivers you have to his house and tell him I'll talk with him this afternoon 4:00 pm"

Minister in charge of negotiations secretary says: "But Minister, you're scheduled at the buffet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs from Australia."

"Girl/Dude the frikkin reason everyone's visiting us all the time is because I haven't met with these ornery folks! Go get me some coffee and get someone in here who can tell me what's been happening the past six months."

Probably took me longer to dream up the above scenario than for the action to have taken place.

Nomoa.com

PropaGanda

Modules

PSA and making sense out of the rubble

Common Courtesy, Contracts do not apply to the Governance of Tonga.

The efficacy of the selection process for the Public Service Commissioners.

Petitions don't mean much