Minister Shaw Urges Public Servants to Maintain Good Standards

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Audley Shaw has urged public servants to work together to provide good service and maintain standards of which the country can be proud.
“We have a challenge in our sphere of activity – in order for us to move forward, everything connects, the quality of public service connects to a more productive society, (and) our ability to deliver services more efficiently,”
Mr. Shaw said, while addressing the opening session of the 89th annual general meeting of the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA), at the Knutsford Court Hotel, on Thursday (May 29).
He said an environment must be created within which the respect for human productivity and work ethic is re-developed.
“If something can be done in one day, do not take one week to do it; if something can be done in a week, let us not take a month to do it. whichever human being that comes to us for a service to be provided, let us remember that that person is the customer, is the tax-payer, and we have been employed to serve that person and let us do it willingly, expeditiously and let us do it with a smile,” Mr. Shaw implored.
The Minister emphasized that there is a general need in the society to lift standards in every facet of life. “We have to make personal commitment that whatever I do and whomever I engage, I need to spread the notion of lifting up standards of personal excellence (and) of good conduct.”
Mr. Shaw noted that if falling standards are tolerated, then the standards of the society and everything within it will deteriorate, as everything and everyone is connected.
“We have a lot of problems and it is going to take time to solve these problems, all of us together need to acknowledge where we are so that together, we can go forward and the inter-linkages are all there including the need for us to accept the principle of individual excellence,” he stated.
President of the JCSA, Wayne Jones, in his remarks, noted that the JCSA is the premier worker representative body of the public sector as it serves the people of Jamaica, the Caribbean and the world public services. He therefore urged “collaboration of all the stakeholders and the association in addressing the many problems facing the country.”
The JCSA annual general meeting was held under the theme: Nation Building through Quality Public Service and Worker Empowerment.