People don't seem to want to say publicly what appears to be badly hurting this Government. I think that there are many people in the public sector who see the present administration as their enemy. I think many of them hold senior posts. Their purpose is to insist that new proposed approaches to problems can't work, blunt the effectiveness of government initiatives and generally to slow down action if all else fails.

I think they are part of a strategy hatched over the last 20 years, the aim of which is to discredit and destroy any new government. If a key person is moving in the opposite direction to the government's, he/she can slow its agenda to a crawl. Some of these persons have 'iron-clad contracts' that bind them to government for a long time. I also think that a system was set up to defend operatives like these. This system sees People's National Party officials, some media personalities and so-called independents rising to attack the Government like angry wasps when one of these persons is touched.

The Government would have been accused of witch-hunting and time-wasting if they had removed these people early on. They therefore have sat, suffered and watched their hold on power slipping away. Only if one of these people steps out of line can action be taken. Even then, the wasps still rise to their defence.

Good plan

It is a good plan to get back into power within five years of losing it. The recession must seem like a god-send bonus to the planners. The problem for the rest of us is that we suffer while the Government and Opposition fight like this and the public suffers worse when the architects of this heartless plan regain power.

There are only two ways that the Government could win this fight. They could have fired all the sleeper spies when they took over. Then they would have had to hope that they succeeded spectacularly at running the country, so that the nation would hail them as having done the right thing. The other way is to have some plan that will see a revolution in the public sector once the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral loans are in the bag.

The chance for the former has gone. Do they have the guts and imagination to do the latter over the next three years?

I am, etc.,

CLAUDE RUSSELL

jackreb65@yahoo.com