Riding the bumpy fast track road

The latest in Government’s growing number of companies, it stresses, are needed to cut out the humbug of red tape and so speed up work on relevant State projects, has been the tentatively named Tobago Development Company. Nonetheless, while the principled concept of eliminating needless delays and cost overruns may come across on paper as good, it can lead, ultimately, except Government institutes mechanisms to guarantee accountability, to the same monsters Government insists it wishes to avoid. Government in its anxiety to cut out the red tape should seek, in addition to placing emphasis on transparency and accountability, to avoid duplication of efforts both in other State agencies and the public service.

We understand the desire of Government to follow international trends, particularly in the private sector, with respect to new jobs being given out, increasingly, on contract.  Unfortunately, on the flip side, the adoption, however limited, of the capital intensive mode being introduced into the public sector will lead to fewer better paying jobs, and in a developing nation such as Trinidad and Tobago, a sense of insecurity in the unskilled section of the work force. UNC MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar  has cautioned that the creation of several such companies may have been designed to circumvent proper rules for tendering, removing transparency and paving the road for corruption.  She has seen it as yet another avenue of jobs for the boys.

Government should resist seeking to dismiss the charges made by  Persad-Bissessar, particularly as there have been several examples during past administrations of the ruling PNM which support her argument.  It should insist that the specially created companies would be required to exhibit a private sector approach and demonstrate that attempts at fast tracking are designed to ensure delivery in the shortest possible time and at minimum cost in the short, medium and long term to the taxpayer.

But if there is to be a private sector approach, then the fast track companies must be prepared to show they will not tolerate freeloaders, but will instead punish non performers, even up to dismissal, this after following carefully laid down industrial relations practices. Government, however, cannot plead as the raison d’etre for these companies —  performance, optimum delivery of projects in minimum time, the cutting out of traditional public sector waste and/or the elimination of red tape  —  while allowing itself to be seen as falling victim to the very evils against which  Persad-Bissessar has warned.