President Kangaloo urges innovation and integrity in public service

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has called for sus­tained in­no­va­tion in the pub­lic ser­vice while em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of ad­her­ing to es­tab­lished rules and con­ven­tions, as she ad­dressed the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) PrAISE Awards for In­no­va­tion in Ser­vice Ex­cel­lence 2025 on Tues­day.

Speak­ing at Pres­i­dent’s House, which host­ed the awards for the first time, Kan­ga­loo not­ed that the life of a pub­lic ser­vant of­ten un­folds with­in pro­ce­dures and reg­u­la­tions that, while pro­vid­ing checks and bal­ances, can some­times lim­it cre­ativ­i­ty. She high­light­ed the pres­sures faced by of­fi­cers from cit­i­zens who may not al­ways ap­pre­ci­ate the need for strict com­pli­ance with op­er­a­tional di­rec­tives, say­ing these re­al­i­ties make na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of ser­vice ex­cel­lence all the more im­por­tant.

“The PrAISE Awards bring at­ten­tion to in­no­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty with­in the pub­lic sec­tor at a time when pub­lic dis­course of­ten fo­cus­es on chal­lenges,” the Pres­i­dent said. She thanked the IDB for es­tab­lish­ing a pro­gramme that high­lights the ini­tia­tives and ded­i­ca­tion of pub­lic of­fi­cers, adding that the awards counter mis­con­cep­tions and demon­strate the ca­pac­i­ty and com­mit­ment of the ser­vice na­tion­wide.

Kan­ga­loo said the eighth edi­tion of the awards added to a se­ries of firsts for her of­fice in 2025, in­clud­ing host­ing Ram­leela and the an­nu­al Armistice Din­ner, not­ing that Pres­i­dent’s House con­tin­ues to evolve as a space re­flect­ing na­tion­al goals.

Ref­er­enc­ing three core func­tions of the pub­lic ser­vice iden­ti­fied by for­mer Ja­maican Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary Dr Carl­ton Davis—ad­vis­ing gov­ern­ment, im­ple­ment­ing pol­i­cy, and sup­port­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive op­er­a­tions—Kan­ga­loo said these du­ties re­main cen­tral to­day, even as of­fi­cers nav­i­gate reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tems that can im­pede in­no­va­tion. She added that the awards cel­e­brate the suc­cess of teams that over­came such bar­ri­ers.

This year’s awards fea­tured two cat­e­gories: Cit­i­zen Ex­pe­ri­ence and In­ter­nal User Ex­pe­ri­ence. Kan­ga­loo said projects in the Cit­i­zen Ex­pe­ri­ence cat­e­go­ry demon­strat­ed ef­forts to bring ser­vices clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties while im­prov­ing fair­ness and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty. Ini­tia­tives in the In­ter­nal User Ex­pe­ri­ence cat­e­go­ry fo­cused on ef­fi­cien­cy, da­ta use, train­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“In­no­va­tion is es­sen­tial to ser­vice ex­cel­lence, but pub­lic of­fi­cers must bal­ance new ap­proach­es with com­pli­ance,” Kan­ga­loo said. “Ad­her­ence to es­tab­lished rules and con­ven­tions sup­ports trans­paren­cy, sta­bil­i­ty, and con­fi­dence in de­ci­sion-mak­ing. We must re­main vig­i­lant to en­sure in­no­va­tion does not con­flict with these prin­ci­ples.”

The Pres­i­dent con­clud­ed by stress­ing that con­tin­ued trans­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic ser­vice re­quires on­go­ing in­vest­ment in train­ing, dig­i­tal ca­pac­i­ty, man­age­ment prac­tices, and mod­ern gov­er­nance.