Government doubles down on closing of Public Service Training College

The Ministry of Public Service in a hard-hitting press release pilloried statements circulating on social
media about its closure of the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service (BCCPS) denying
sinister or political motives drove the decision.
The statement on the Department of Public Information (DPI) website condemned the public service
training institution as part of the political apparatus of the former A Partnership for National Unity,
Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition government which lost the March 2015 polls.
“As a matter of fact, 60 persons were processed per year to enter the Public Service at a Clerk III
position, bypassing those experienced in a Clerk II position who earned less and in turn had to train
the very persons coming out of the college, the release said.
The last batch of recruits was selected from eight of the 10 Administrative Regions, many of them
historic strongholds of the incumbent administration. A former BCCPS administrator confirmed that
only Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Seven (Cuyuni – Mazaruni) were unrepresented in the
last BCCPS batch of trainees.
The government ministry’s statement said, “the fact these persons instead were only entering the
public service at the entry level, is a clear indication that entity was never intended to be a national
institution, but rather a political machinery of the APNU/AFC”.
This practice violates what former Public Service Minister, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley told Guyana
Chronicle on December 13, 2019 that “it is the vision of the President as well as mine that the
Bertram Collins College would be the premier training institution for all levels of the public service in
this country,” DPI reminded.
The BCCPS was formed after a concept paper endorsed the President David Granger’s vision of
establishing a modern college to train public servants at the entry level, junior management, middle
management, and senior management levels.
“The paper also outlined how the College should be structured and managed as a semi-autonomous
institution,” the College said on its website.
DPI said as public record, Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo last year announced the Peoples
Progressive Party Civic coalition would close “this poorly structured college which was designed as a
political tool for the APNU/AFC,” if they won the March 2020 polls.
The BCCPS said on its website that the concept paper which led to the formation of the
institution “stressed the importance of employing qualified and experienced staff (many were serving

University of Guyana [UG] lecturers) and the acquisition of modern training equipment and materials.
It also emphasise the establishment of enabling environment to motivate staff, including remuneration
which must be seriously considered to attract and retain the best staff,”.
The DPI release criticised the fiscal provisions for the BCCPS in the yearly allocations.
“The annual budget for the Staff College in 2017 was a whopping $175.8M and $143.6M in 2018.
Ninety-nine per cent of the staff were on contract with 50 percent being retirees. Recurrent expenses,
that is, salaries for the staff, collectively amounted to more than $87M yearly. Exorbitant sums of
money were being bled from the Treasury to sustain the College,” the state media said.
It knocked the $80M spent on rehabilitating building used for training when “an active Training
Division at the Ministry of Public Service which conducts induction and staff development
programmes intended to achieve the very outcome of professionalism. Therefore, the Staff College
sought to duplicate and supersede the Ministry’s Training Division.”
The blistering DPI statement noted “there was no recruitment of trainees for the year 2020-2021 and
those who completed in the year 2020 were placed in the Public Sector.” A former executive told
www.aroundtheeregions.com that the deadly COVID-19 pandemic stalled its recruitment drive.
The Ministry, without providing details, promised “structural overhaul” in public service training
programmes and said these will be catered for in this year’s budget.
The Ministry’s statement, eerily similar in tone to communist rhetoric, counsels the nation “to ignore
the dishonest ramblings and divisive tactics of a desperate few who are seeking to gain political
mileage by misrepresenting facts.”