June 09, 2006

THOUSANDS OF CIVIL SERVANTS TO BE SACKED

Former president Albert Rene said that if Mr James Michel, the SPPF presidential candidate, were elected president at the next election, he would be cleaning the civil service of thousands of opposition sympathisers.

Mr Rene was addressing the 2500 capacity crowd of party supporters last Sunday in Victoria, in what is now seen to be a disguised election rally. Substantive highlights of the rally was broadcast on Monday June 5th by SBC, the State funded broadcasting media – showing most of people present wearing JJ t-shirts, the campaign symbol of Mr Michel. The SBC report on the rally, one observer said, was an obvious party political broadcast by the SPPF.

A spokesperson for the DP says that a copy of the broadcast and transcript in English is on its way to the Commonwealth Secretariat as well as foreign embassies to expose the bias of SBC leading up to the election. SBC is funded entirely by the State to the tune of SR 20 million a year.

Rene is officially still the leader of his party after 40 years and has claimed that he will remain in the post for some time to come. Whilst praising Michel as a capable person, Rene reassured the crowd, however, that he would be there next to Michel at all times to help him govern. Michel has told the French TV channel, TV5 that, although he is President of the Republic, he takes orders from Rene because the latter is his boss as head of the party. SPPF, created in 1978, has the same structure as the Soviet Communist Party – except Rene’s title was changed to president instead of general secretary after the fall of the one-party state.

Rene is caught between a rock and a hard place observers say. According to observers, Rene has been under pressure to make a declaration about his control of a future government headed by Michel even though it will alienate many right thinking members of the electorate, for fear of losing the votes of the elderly and many who voted only because of Rene in the past. 

During the disguised election rally, Rene said that many people have come to him at his office at the party headquarters, complaining that the Michel administration was not delivering services. The fault, Rene said, lies not with Michel but with the civil servants who he said were sabotaging the party’s work in government. It was then that Rene made his threat that Michel will be “cleaning up” the government if he becomes the President. Observers believe thousands are expected to be sacked because SPPF has few supporters among government employees.

Over the 30 years of SPPF rule, the number of people working for the government increased from less that 4000 in 1977 to nearly 11,000 today. The Government accounts for 30% of formal employment and 60% of GDP.