Prime Minister Godwin Friday has acknowledged that many public servants in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are being asked to perform “miracles” in “substandard” and even “health‑hazard” conditions.
He pledged during the Public Service Week Thanksgiving Service in Kingstown to partner with them to improve their working environment while calling on them to raise their own standards of service.
Friday used his first appearance at the event as prime minister to press a twin message – the government’s responsibility to provide better conditions, and public servants’ duty to provide timely, professional service to citizens.
‘We are called to serve’
Friday linked his message to earlier remarks and a skit presented during the service, stressing that public service is fundamentally about service to others, not servitude.
Reinforcing the theme of service, “Transforming Public Institutions: Advancing Innovation, Participation and Inclusion”, he told public officers:
“We are called to serve, and it’s incumbent upon us to do our very best in whatever our roles are.”
He acknowledged that in local culture, shaped by the history of slavery, there is sometimes a negative association with the idea of serving.
“Service means being a help to your neighbour, to your friend, to the people who have a right to expect us to do our best for them.”
Friday described public servants as among the “best educated, most talented, hardworking, dedicated people in the country”, stressing that their work helps create the environment in which the broader economy functions.
Call for higher productivity and professionalism
The prime minister linked national economic challenges — particularly debt and fiscal pressures — to the need for greater productivity in the public sector.
He noted that the government must confront debt while “at the same time providing services, paying the salaries, putting on the light, investing in development projects, and so forth”, and argued that increased productivity is essential.
“Productivity is what creates whatever the surplus is, the increase in wealth that helps to deal with all of those things.
That can be done within the public service as well, because you set the context of what everybody else does out there.”
Friday urged officers to avoid unnecessary delays in responding to citizens and businesses, warning that procrastination in offices can stall wider economic activity.
He acknowledged the pressure and frustration many workers feel when they are repeatedly confronted with problems that are not easily solved.
The prime minister warned that when public servants respond in a dismissive or unprofessional manner, “We are not really performing the best of our function… that makes the person… feel bad about the service that you provide.”
Emphasising mutual responsibility, Friday echoed an earlier appeal by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Public Service, St. Clair Leacock, for public servants to “lift [their] game”.
“Let us decide that we are going to do better.
Imagine if all of us decide to lift our game.”
Public ‘entitled to good service’
Friday stressed that citizens are not seeking favours from the state but exercising their rights as taxpayers:
He repeatedly framed public service in moral and spiritual terms, tying it to gratitude for life and purpose and argued that each new day is both a blessing and an obligation.
‘Substandard’ and ‘health hazard’ conditions
In some of his most pointed remarks, Friday turned to the physical conditions under which many public servants work, saying he had personally witnessed situations that are not acceptable.
“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen enough to know that we have to put our best foot forward, as well, as permanent secretaries, as ministers, as the people who are in charge of the various offices that you inhabit,” said the prime minister, whose government came to office on Nov. 28.
Citing a recent visit to the police training school in Old Montrose, he described what he saw as “terrible”.
“They don’t do the training there no more, but the officers who are required to live there… the conditions are terrible.”
He said he was told that there were long‑standing plans to “knock the place down” and rehabilitate it, but that those plans had dragged on for year.
“… John Lennon said life is what happens when you’re making plans,” Friday said.
Those plans have been under work since 2016 and people are still required to come to work and to give of their best when we tell them, by the conditions in which we ask them to work, that we don’t value you. That is not fair, it’s not right. And it bothered me.”
Friday stressed that the problem was not confined to the police, even as he said that based on what he has seen, they have “the worst of it…
“… even in my own building… the conditions aren’t ideal, far from ideal,’ he said, referring to the administrative complex.
He described some of the situations as a direct health risk.
“It’s a health hazard to have people working in mouldy buildings, and that’s happening all over the public service.
It’s demeaning to tell somebody to work out of a closet rather than an office, to tell them to work in the corridors because we don’t have space for you.”
Commitment: Gov’t to be ‘a partner with you’
Against that background, the prime minister offered a public commitment to workers.
“… we are going to be a partner with you to ensure that we do our very best within the limited resources we have to provide better conditions to you, so that you can do your work and so that you can be productive”.
He acknowledged that government finances are tight, adding, “but money isn’t everything”.
The prime minister said his administration would seek “all kinds of creative ways” to improve facilities and signalled that he is prepared to face criticism over some of the approaches his government may adopt.
“I don’t care what people say. I’m going to do it, because I know what we’re doing is … going to help you, it’s going to help the country, it’s going to help everybody.”
Addressing potential critics, he said.
“For those who are naysayers and want to find fault and pick faults for everything, watch the result and you will see that we are going to deliver for you as public servants, and we ask you, lift your game. Let us deliver for the people of this country. They deserve nothing less.”