Scholarship Award system heavily flawed, public service low on human resource skills – Min Parag finds
-system to be review and changed
Minister of Public Service, Hon. Sonia Parag, during a virtual press conference on Monday, said she is currently working to reform inefficiencies in the Public Service.
Among these inefficiencies is the scholarship system, which she found to be heavily flawed, following a two-week assessment of the Ministry.
“The system we have for vetting scholarships, that system is heavily flawed. That is what I have personally observed, and that is something that I plan to review and plan to change,” Minister Parag said.
She also found the awarding of scholarships to be “skewed to one demographic and geographic in Guyana”. This is something which the Minister outlined has occurred over the last five years and needs to be corrected, as it is far from her Government’s vision for all Guyanese.
“The PPP/C Government has always said that it’s going to be fair, it’s going to be transparent to Guyanese and that is what we plan to do.”
The Minister also touched on the fact that the establishment of timelines in the scholarship system, is another void in the system that needs to be fixed.
“We have the Scholarship Department, which has absolutely no timeframe from the time an application is made, to the time of an award. So, I do plan to implement a timeframe therein as well.”
To add to the list, timeframes for granting allowances and the filling of vacancies are also non-existent, according to the Minister.
Minister Parag is also currently working on placements for students who have completed their studies, and are awaiting employment assignment to the relevant entities.
The Department of Public Service, which currently falls under the Office of the Presidency is also being reverted to be being the Ministry of the Public Service, once again.
As the Ministry reverts, Minister Parag intends to build on a currently diminished human resource, to foster a more productive Public Service Ministry.
“The Ministry has been running on very low human resource skills…Those were my first observations and those are things that I believe that I need to change immediately.”