Move away from ‘personal whim’ reshuffle

I have lived in Glencoe for 21 years and never seen Dr Rowley on any “walkabout” in my community and since I am unaware of his contribution to improving his constituency, my rating of his performance as an MP would be fairly low. So without any evidence to the contrary, I have used a purely subjective perception to rate Dr Rowley.

However, the flaw with my rating and my concern with the PM’s anticipated assessment of Ministers, is the lack of clear criteria for measurement of performance and the evidence that will be used to support the proposed assessment.

For example, how will Minister Cadiz’ performance be measured given that one of the core mandates of his Ministry is to facilitate diversification of the economy? Will he be assessed based on the performance of the TT Film Company, that is jobs created in the film industry over the last two years or revenue generated by the industry? What about the TT Entertainment Co? How many jobs have been created or revenue contributed to GDP, etc.

What about the Education (MOE and MATTE) Ministers? Did they have performance targets? Will the PM be looking at participation rates and/or achievement rates and/or rates of drop outs? Quality of curriculum delivery? Number of school protests?

And what about the replacement players? How will the PM assess the performance of Ministers who were shuffled or newly appointed within the last year or so: Gender, Youth and Child Development, Energy, Health, Public Administration, Planning and the Economy, Transport? Surely, the same assessment will not be used, given the relatively short period during which these individuals have managed their respective portfolios?

The “new politics” demands that we move away from what many perceive as “reshuffle by personal whim” to an evidenced-based approach that facilitates accountability not only to the PM but to the people.

ALEXA KHAN

via e-mail