Dear Editor,
The 2023 Budget has invited considerable comments and analyses of the numbers – billions of dollars in respect of a wide range of programmatic activities which the undersigned must admit are competently addressed by eminent experts.
Foremost amongst the latter is Ram and Mc Rae whose exhaustive commentary highlights amongst others, the following areas of interest to the undersigned, in sequential order:
a) Increasing reliance on Cash Grants as a measure of poverty reduction. It is not clear whether there is any explicit economic construct obtaining that would predict a basis for a viable poverty reduction plan over any identified period of time. Some would see the need for a more sustainable approach to such a concept.
b) Ministry of Public Works
Rehabilitation of Public and Main access Roads.
Those who commute, including in Government vehicles, must be concerned about the condition of roads in some sections of the city: first east of Vlissengen Road; then further east of Sheriff street. The media should investigate and produce photographs of the hostile conditions in which residents in the respective communities are deluged.
But incidentally what must be quite derisible are the potholes in the road which leads through the main Police Compound in the Kingston area – between Parade Street and Camp Street.
c) Ministry of Local Government and Development
Somewhat a misnomer – as if other Ministries are not involved in ‘development’.
– Community Enhancement, curiously based on infrastructure.
– Community driven entrepreneurial ‘inventions’? (Should this not read ‘interventions’?).
– Subventions for
1) Municipalities.
11) Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
– Solid Waste Management Interventions.
The above all have substantive implications for management and implementation by appropriately qualified technical competencies, in respect of which there has never been any indication by any administration of the selection and recruitment process in the Regional Areas to the extent that the omission of the position of Regional Executive Officer goes persistently unnoticed in the Budget. This is compounded with the fact that the responsibility of REOs includes multi-subject areas as compared to counterpart Permanent Secretaries (probably better qualified) who are assigned a single broad operational responsibility.
d) Other Measures
The employment of 11,000 persons to work in public offices for 10 days per month for $40,000 monthly in Regions, with Region 4 blatantly (politically) differentiated. In the meantime it would be interesting to observe the reporting work registers and related job descriptions, if any at all.
e) What is perhaps troubling is the absence of any substantive Human Resources Development Plan that would contribute to effective implementation and sustenance of the several grandiose programmes.
One sees increasing recourse to ‘Contracted Employees’ within the respective Ministries, too many on a compensation format that offers better rewards than pensionable counterparts in same or similar positions; as well as the stultification of an objective Succession Plan and related promotion prospects. The situation is compounded by an illusionary set of salary scales that have become totally irrelevant, overcome as they are by compulsive insistence on periodic increases. The implication, or rather the confirmation, is of a ‘servant’ who gets hardly any recognition for his/her performance; of reducing morale and the individual hope of being recognised as a human being with career ambitions, contrasting with acclaim given to static ‘infrastructure’.
And while there is much ado about ‘Billions’ spent, and to be spent, there is minimal reporting of actual achievement in relation to projected targets.
What obtains in all the verbosity is a celebration of the diminution of the human spirit, the absence of opportunity to boast of individual and organisational achievement that parents could take home to their children as inspiration for their own ambitions.
When all the hullabaloo is over there is left this resonance of unrelenting sterility in citizens of compliant communities.
In summary however, there is urgent need for a creative and comprehensive human resources training and development centre!
Unfortunately the review to which I engaged did not make specific reference to the capability prospects of the University of Guyana and the Cyril Potter College of Education; and indeed any specific results from the GOAL scholarships awards programme so far. But all teachers are critical contributors to human development.
Yours faithfully,
E. B. John
