THE MORE I LISTEN IS THE SAME THING I HEAR

Nov 20, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Most Presidents rise early in the morning and retire to bed late at night. These are the occupational hazards of the job.
Their time is not theirs to do as they please. It is in great demand. Everyone wants a piece of the President and there are always so many meetings to attend.
Most US Presidents would indicate that they begin their day trying to get filled-in on what happened while they were asleep. This is called a briefing.
A typical working day for a President of the United States would usually begin with briefing from his senior advisers. So what is a typical day for the President of Guyana?
It would be expected that as soon as he has arisen, that the President would have a working breakfast where he would be briefed, for example, on the rescue exercise that is being launched to find the members of the crew of a barge and tug that encountered problems.
The President needs to know the state-of-play with EZ Jet. He can do two things to find this out. He can pick up the Kaieteur News to see what is being reported or he can contact the Minister of Public Works who is heading the rescue operations.
Then the President may be interested in finding out about the national security situation. So he picks up the phone and calls Roger. He gets his briefing.
In parting, he may ask Roger about the situation with the opposition in parliament. Roger may advise him to contact Gail.
He rings Gail. She explains that there is some “rubbish” taking place with the opposition but hopes that things would get better.
“Yes,” he says, “I must check on the preparation of next year’s Budget.” So he calls Ashni. The diminutive financial wizard gives him a briefing about what is taking place, including about developments in the housing sector.
He must therefore call Irfaan for a further briefing. As he is speaking, to Irfaan, he asks about how West Indies is doing in Bangladesh.
This triggers an interest in the President as to how the court action involving the Guyana Cricket Board is proceeding. So he has to call Anil. He gets his briefing.
Everyone that he has called so far has been closely associated with the outgoing Jagdeo administration or with the outgoing President.
This is the problem that the new President faces. He is expected to look, sound and smell differently from his predecessor. Yet he is dependent on the same old guard for his briefing.
So how much different are things going to be for the new President when he still is relying on the same old personnel? What different things are they going to tell him? Or will it be the same old political strategy that will inform the advice that the President is having?
The President has appointed a team and all his ministers and advisers are part of that team. He does not have to change that team immediately. In many respects, his hands were tied as to who he could have chosen because, for his Cabinet, he had to choose persons that were on his party’s List of Candidates and since the campaign was based on the successes of the previous administration, it was only natural that the members of the previous government would populate the party’s List of Candidates.
The President has to also listen to those whom he has appointed to top positions within his government. But if he wants to be different, if he wants to look and sound and smell different from his predecessor, then he has to also talk to other people. This is why he needs a new coterie of Advisers.
He is the President. He does not have to accept what his Ministers are saying. He only has to listen to what they say. He is the President and ultimately he can listen and disregard. But if he is only obtaining advice from the same old sources as his predecessor, how different is his rule going to be?
The President has already received applause for being a good listener. During  his first national stakeholders meeting, he was said to have listened keenly and responded favourably to those present. He made an impact.
But he needs to also do this in the day-to-day affairs of his office. He needs to listen to views that are outside the box. He needs to pick up the phone and talk to persons whose views may not coincide with that of his administration.
He needs, for example, to see whether the approach that is being taken to the financial management of the economy is the best one. The PPP had a remarkable run of economic success by any standards. It expected to win the elections easily. So why did it not gain the 55 per cent that it expected? The President may have been led to believe that his party was robbed along the way. This is what some of his close people may be telling him.
But suppose this is not so. Is there a problem with the economic model that the country is pursuing? Was the participation of Private Sector firms in the housing drive responsible for the high prices for housing? Are food prices too high and are the poor hurting? Is tax administration really as successful as it is claimed? How can sugar be turned around? Or has the demographics changed unalterably against the PPP?
Right now all that the President is hearing are from the same individuals who ran the Jagdeo administration. He needs to hear some others and therefore he should appoint a team of advisers to help him so that he gets all sorts of views.
In the end, he has to decide how to act and he will act in the best way if he has the benefit of varying viewpoints.
He should encourage differences of opinion and should remove all those “yes-men” that like to hang around.
There are persons who will be willing to give the President advice free of cost once they know that he is serious about doing things differently. He should not be afraid to bring in experts in the various fields to advise him, since a different view may be the answer to the problems that the country faces.
It is all up to the President. He has to decide whether he will continue to rely solely on the old guard or whether he will have the old guard as well as a new guard that he can turn to get the fuller picture.

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