APNU HAS CONFIDENCE IN CITY HALL

Nov 30, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Even as it prepares for local government elections, APNU is calling for centralization of management within the country. This would seem to be in direct contradiction with the movement towards devolving and decentralizing power away from the centre.
A few weeks ago, APNU issued a statement in which is examined what it deemed to be deficiencies in public infrastructure. It stated that deteriorating infrastructure is impeding national development. Interestingly, instead of urging that more public works be delegated, it called for a national plan to coordinate and consolidate the resources of the various state agencies involved in infrastructural projects.
This was essentially a call for increased centralization because any such coordination and consolidation would involve establishing a mechanism to be responsible for infrastructural projects.
The flaw with this suggestion by APNU for a coherent plan to coordinate the various projects being undertaken by various ministries of the government is that it fails to appreciate that public infrastructure is only public in terms of ownership.
From conceptualization, to construction to monitoring and supervision, public works are privatized. The designs are tendered; the supervision is contracted out. The construction is undertaken by private firms and the financing inevitably comes from some external source.
APNU’s call therefore for a plan to coordinate public infrastructure misses the nature of how public projects are created and implemented. What is needed is improved capacity within the various ministries and agencies, not consolidations and coordination.
APNU also misses the fact that the Regional Administrations are responsible for a great deal of public infrastructure and therefore when it attributes blame for the poor state of infrastructure it should not exculpate the regional administrations from responsibility for the deterioration.
APNU itself is in charge of many regional administrations and if its wants increased coordination and consolidation, this can be interpreted to mean that it wants some of the responsibilities that are presently devolved or delegated to local authorities to be centralized.
APNU, of course, is not into the business of blaming those regional administrations over which it has control. Why blame them when the government can be flogged?
APNU equally does not wish to blame the Georgetown City Council which is controlled by the PNCR. Instead of demanding that the City Council take responsibility for what took place on Tuesday when floodwaters led to millions of dollars in losses, APNU instead calls for the government to appoint a Ministerial Task Force to coordinate drainage and irrigation.
It is hard to imagine what the Task Force would have done given the rains that descend upon the city last Tuesday. This Task Force of course does not address the root of the problem which is the failure of the City Council to maintain the drainage systems in the capital and to ensure that all the pumps are working.
APNU will call for all manner of things but it will not call for the one thing that will perhaps give residents of the city hope that last Wednesday will not reoccur. APNU will not call for the replacement of the City Council.
It will not even support a non- political Interim Management Committee to take command. But it will demand that government assume responsibility for cleaning up the mess that the PNCR and the GGG’s policies have inflicted on the city over the years.
The government will have to be crazy to put money into the hands of the present Council This Council has failed and failed abysmally and needs to go. The private sector is not going to put resources into cleaning the city because the private sector has also lost confidence in City Hall.
It is only APNU that is keeping the faith in City Hall. But if they are so confident in City Hall why call on the government to form a Ministerial Task Force? Why not simply call on City Hall to ensure that there is improved drainage in the city?

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APNU HAS CONFIDENCE IN CITY HALL

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