Dear Editor,

The Bahamas-based Nassau Guardian has carried US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks.

An article in its June 27, 2011 edition drew my interest. The headline was “FNM had hostile takeover of the civil service”. The article pointed to the Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham-led FNM administration having won the 2007 general election being faced with a “recalcitrant civil service that was so bureaucratic and inefficient in its operations that the new government felt it was in the midst of a ‘hostile takeover’, according to cables obtained through WikiLeaks.” The article spoke to the inefficiency, unhelpfulness and bureaucratic malaise that characterised the civil service.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Brent Symonette went as far as to tell US officials that “the new government was effectively in the midst of a ‘hostile takeover’ of the bureaucracy and that it would take time for them to get a handle on the machinery of government.”

The situation in the Bahamas is clearly similar to that of Jamaica. The difference is Prime Minister Bruce Golding did not take the more aggressive approach as the Ingraham administration. Edward Seaga made the same mistake.

So while Jamaica continues to welter in governmental bureaucracy, the Bahamas moved quickly to alter the civil service so that it is more responsive to the policies and directives being pursued by the elected administration of the day. Following recent debates about Delano Seiveright’s too candid commentary on the sensitive issue and this Wikileaks cable coming out of the Bahamas regarding same, isn’t it time that we seriously address this obvious problem?

Jeremy Wynter

Kingston 19

jeremywynter@yahoo.com