Page 108 - Afrika Must Unite

THE ADMINISTRATIVE INSTRUMENT 93
m ent comes to power, for abstention from political interference.
It also has the reputation of being cautious, conservative, staid,
static, often corollaries of personal security. These are decidedly
not the qualities required by a new state about to launch its
people on a vast new programme of dynamic development.
Government and civil service are inter-related. Government
determines policy, the body of civil servants carries it out. The
finest programmes will get bogged down if the civil servants who
direct their practical execution are incompetent and without
dedication. O ur desired rate of development must not be im­
peded because we are obliged to carry white-collar government
employees who will put in a standard stint of office hours and
then forget all about the job; who will never put a foot wrong
but who will never have an original idea; who will think the
task performed with the writing of a competent letter; who will
be more concerned with status and prestige than with helping
the public; whose fear of responsibility will always prom pt the
passing on of decisions and action; who will model themselves
on the Hom burg-hatted um brella-carrying civil servant of an
established state rather than on the pioneer worker of a new
and developing country.
Security of employment is a fine principle and one which I
endorse, but I do not think a civil servant in G hana today has
greater right to security than the fisherman, the cocoa-grower,
the driver, the port worker, the teacher, the road labourer or
market woman. I am averse to our civil servants being lodged in
the State apparatus like a nail without a h ead: once you drive
it in, you cannot pull it out. Government must retain the right
of dismissal, and the civil servant must be made to realize that
he can be dismissed if he does not perform the job required of
him. He must be grappling with his work all the time, thinking
twenty-four hours a day how best he can serve his country by his
performance for the ministry in which he works. The G hanaian
civil servant must be utterly devoted and dedicated to the ideal
of reconstructing our country. He must show leadership, he
must, like his Minister, set an example to the people he serves.
He must be a pioneer.
These are the demands which we make of our civil service.
They are high, for the task of the civil servant in the building up