Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has is­sued a warn­ing to his sec­re­taries, telling them that when he is giv­en the au­thor­i­ty to in­crease their num­bers, he ex­pects that with­in nine months they ei­ther pro­duce or be pruned.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, a day af­ter he was sworn in for a sec­ond term, Au­gus­tine said, “I will be giv­ing every sec­re­tary I ap­point just nine months to start to prove your­self.

“If in nine months, they don’t prove them­selves, I’m just re­mov­ing you and putting some­body else. Be­cause at the end of the day, when the de­liv­ery doesn’t hap­pen, every­one looks at the Chief Sec­re­tary. I am not sec­re­tary of all I sur­vey, but I am sec­re­tary of all sec­re­taries that I ap­point.”