We must seek help when we need it

Humility is not a popular virtue with most people, but if you want to get the job done, that is what may be needed. No one likes to be seen as incompetent or ineffective and sometimes we go to great lengths to hide it to our own detriment and to the detriment of others who depend on us to get the job done.

But count on it, if we continue in our ways of trying to fool ourselves that we are fooling others, we will end up being the fool.

Would that we could be so good at fixing as we are at talking and reporting. We are forever inundated with reports, some very expensive, yet the next steps are not taken, ie, using the report to fix the problems. Getting things done in the public domain for the good of the people and the betterment of society seems to be our greatest challenge.

Just like consultations, reports are virtually useless unless the results are used to take corrective action.

Whatever the reasons or excuses, bureaucracy, incompetence, lack of proper governance and management, it is really deplorable that we are so hopeless at taking timely, corrective action in critical areas like the justice system, healthcare, crime and road maintenance.

Where are the action takers? Where are the managers? Collecting their salaries no doubt but not getting the job done. At the risk of being simplistic, the solutions to the problem are 1) having the right systems in place and 2) having the right people for the job. Most of the systems in government need to be reviewed and updated.

We have an effective and profitable private sector right here in TT . How is it that in the same country there is an efficient profitable private sector and an inefficient public sector? Although the problems would not be the same, the modus operandi of effective management would always apply.

Also, there are several First World countries that have probably encountered and solved some of the same problems we are now going through; Singapore for example.

Let’s get some good advice either locally or abroad and take it.

And don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating our classic solution to most of our problems, the throwsome- money-after-it syndrome.

Take my advice. Let’s ask for help. We need it.

A Webster Longdenville