GIVE THE PUBLIC SERVICE SUPPORT! says Akierra Missick

Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, March 24, 2023 – Without significant funding included in the budget for increased human capacity at the departmental level, the ambitious plans of the PNP Government will continue to move at a crawl, said  Akierra Missick, Member of Parliament for Leeward and Long Bay.

Missick said she was prepared to call a spade a spade. 

Speaking in the House of Assembly, she maintained successive Governments, including the current PNP Administration, have failed the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands in this regard. 

“I want my executive colleagues to understand, all of these life-changing initiatives and programs that this PNP through our citizens’ contract is seeking to implement, if we do not bolster these departments– we will continue to suffer delays.”

Missick said the Turks and Caicos Islands civil service, through no fault of their own, had become like an hourglass, with big ideas at the top and the waiting public at the bottom, but a tiny public service to do the legwork to achieve these deliverables. 

“This is where things get stuck, and only one grain of sand, which means one idea, one instruction, or one email can fit at any time.”

She applauded the Permanent Secretaries in each department for understanding the vision but said they can only do so much and the executive must pick up the slack. 

“When it comes down to that one squeeze point where they need to filter these big ideas in order to get them through to the bottom where everyone benefits— this is where Government time and time have failed the people because we have not supported the middle the way we need to.”

Her own call came minutes after, Opposition Appointed Member Alvin Garland, who chairs the Administration Committee and has a front-row seat to the slow pace of government initiatives, agitated for each Department to have a delivery manager. 

Akierra Missick was in January, suddenly relieved of her cabinet position by Washington Misick, TCI premier.  It was a shocking development, which was suspicious and heavily criticised. 

The former Deputy Premier and former PPID Minister expressed disappointment that money was not quoted in the supplementary for the purpose of building human capacity; adding that she hoped the upcoming budget would fund the public service need. 

Missick said: “We will have bright ideas at the top, but they will get stuck in the middle if we don’t provide the human capital that TCIG needs.”