Left: Prime Minister Bruce Golding addresses members of G2K at the party headquarters in New Kingston yesterday. Looking on is Delano Seiveright, the G2K's newly elected president. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer . Right: Patricia Sinclair-McCalla ... tasked with heading the public sector modernisation team. - file

Former permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Patricia Sinclair-McCalla, will head a special team set up to carry out the rationalisation of the public sector, says Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Golding made the announcement yesterday at the annual general meeting of Generation 2000 (G2K) at the Jamaica Labour Party headquarters on Belmont Road, New Kingston.

"We have established a unit which will go into operation on November 16, next Monday," the prime minister said.

"My own permanent secretary will be relinquishing that position and will be taking up a position as the chief executive officer of that small unit. It's a unit of about eight people," he further said.

The prime minister also announced Onika Miller as the new permanent secretary (PS) in the OPM. He said that at her age, Miller would be the youngest PS appointed in the history of Jamaica.

Faith in youth

"Let it be clearly understood that I have faith in young people and I have faith in their ability to see us through," he said in reference to Miller's abilities.

Despite promises on the campaign trail in 2007, the two-year-old Labour administration, which came to power on the lofty slogan of "jobs, jobs, and more jobs", has struggled to deliver.

Harsh economic conditions have forced Golding to morph from the chief servant of jobs to the chief cutter. On the back of job cuts in the private sector which have topped 40,000 since the global recession and attendant economic woes locally, the importance of trimming the public sector - 15,000 positions have been the rough target - has hit home.

Golding yesterday reiterated his intent to trim and modernise the public sector in a bid to cut costs and improve efficiency.

"In order to reduce the burden on the Budget so that we don't have to borrow so much money, we're going to have to reduce those things that are eating up the Budget," he said.

The plan

The prime minister said in this vein, there are government departments which will be closed, while others will be merged in a bid to end overlapping of functions.

He said at present there are more than 200 government agencies, many with their own chief officers and support staff.

"We are going to have to rein in this sprawling, expensive apparatus that we call Government," he said.

"We will be driving that process out of the Cabinet Office and we're going to start rolling that out in about April of next year," he said. "It is going to take us about 18 months. That's the target I've given them."

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com

New kid on the block - Onika Miller will become the youngest permanent secretary in the history of Jamaica.