First it was the reduction of the bloated bureaucracy that created the bad blood between the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Ministry of Finance. The CSC then felt short changed when they realised that only the civil servants had agreed to reduce their salaries while the other independent commissions and the members of the parliament had refused to do so. Now the gigantic egos of the two powerful bodies,- the CSC and the Ministry of Finance has met with a headlong collision over the restoration of the civil servants pay cut. Given this worsening situation in relations, the spirit of negotiation and compromise has come to a dead end.
Without consulting the Ministry of Finance, the CSC has announced that the Finance Ministry’s agreement to reduce civil servants’ salary for three months is now over, and that all civil servants must receive their full salary starting from January. The CSC has directed the permanent secretaries to send the salary sheets to the Finance Ministry with the restored wage levels, warning that employees who do not comply with this directive will be held liable for their failure. The Finance Ministry hit back by threatening legal action against government payroll officers who failed to fill out a reduced salary sheet, charging that the "special circumstances" which made it necessary to reduce the civil servants salaries are still not over. Both agencies have failed to carry out the review of the three month-period of this special circumstance. It appears the CSC has jumped the gun and restored the salary. Not only have both government agencies forgotten to keep their egos in check, they also have threatened to take action against the payroll officers. The payroll officers are in a no win situation, whether they prepare the wage sheets with increased salaries as demanded by the CSC or if they prepare the wage sheets with the reduced salaries as demanded by the Finance Ministry.
No one expects the rival political parties who cordially despise each other's policies, character and integrity to soft-pedal on this type of controversy. The political knives are out to increase the heat, embarrass and cause the maximum damage to the government. With the vested interests of the opposition parties vying for political power, what we see is bitter partisanship and political wrangling. Instead of building our democracy based on the values of freedom, equality and justice, our society has become more polarised than ever before . The hopes of seeing the dawn of a new liberal age are fast fading away. Antagonistic politics can quickly lead to volatile social problems. Unless cooler and responsible heads can prevail, there is a danger that the building blocks of our nascent democracy could spin out of control.
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