Manning, Panday praise staff’s neutrality

The event, a long service awards and dinner ceremony, saw members of Government and Opposition, and past and present Speakers of the House of Representatives and Presidents of the Senate, attending. In his address, Prime Minister Patrick Manning hailed the staff of Parliament for maintaining their neutrality as they served politicians. He said that as officers of Parliament, they had supplied advice and services without which the parliamentarians would have had great difficulty in performing in an informed and efficient manner.

Manning praised the staff for their special skills in being able to cope with MPs. “Parliamentarians come from all walks of life, each with his own style and individuality, most having been accustomed to leadership and authority, and many with their own ideas of how the world including Parliament, should function,” he said. Panday said just like Prime Ministers, he had seen many officials of Parliament come and go. He singled out the current Clerk of the House, Jacqui Sampson-Jacent, and her staff, for their diligence and fairness. “The most efficient, the most fair, the most dedicated, the most unbiased, and the most professional,” is how he described her.

He said Parliament’s staff are the unsung heroes of the Public Service. Often during Budget debates, he recalled, he had felt sorry for them having to toil into the early hours of morning. Manning also said that he could not remember any serious instance of serious conflict between any MP and the public officers who serve them. This achievement, Manning added, was heightened by the fact that Parliament is the prime platform for conflicting views in this country.

In the midst of the “language of emotion” and the “vocabulary of battle”, the staff had kept their composure, he said. “We know they would often have been amused but never did they evince alarm of any other inappropriate emotion.” Even in our small society which can become politically-charged, he said, the staff had never demonstrated political preferences.

They have adhered to the position of the public servant who discharge their duties with impartiality, objectivity and fairness, he added.

Panday told guests that he had been in politics 40 years and had seen five prime ministers come and go. “Some have come and gone.

Some have gone and come back. Some have gone and are waiting to come back. Some have gone and will never come back,” he said, referring to the the fate of past prime ministers.