Qualifications

Oct 06, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) cannot solve the problem of poor government spending. There is nothing that the IDB can recommend which has not been recommended before.
The IDB will most likely refer to the skills/qualifications defects within the public service. It will most likely make a case that the government needs to attract more technically competent persons if it is to improve its implementation of government projects.
The problem is not that the government does not recognize that there is a problem with skills in the economy. The government knows that the country lacks certain skills and this is why the President had to call recently for the influx of brainpower rather than barrels.
The problem is not that the government cannot attract and retain skilled personnel. The ‘super salaries’ which are being paid to persons within the Office of Climate Change, the Department of the Environment and the Project Management Unit of the Ministry of the Presidency attest to the capacity of the government to attract and retain skilled personnel in Guyana.
The problem with implementation of government projects is part of a bigger problem. The government, however, has found itself not very concerned with addressing these problems.
Firstly, there is the problem of absorptive capacity. The government projects have to be implemented by the private sector which for all its credits simply is too weak to be able to take on major infrastructural projects in Guyana. Government spending is too high for such a small economy and a weak private sector.
Secondly, the government continues to make a number of political appointments on the basis that these persons are best suited for the jobs since their loyalty will allow for overcoming the resistance of those who want to hold back development.
The government needs to disabuse itself of this myth that there are forces which are bent on holding back development in Guyana. There is an opposition which has to do what opposition parties do; it has to find fault with what government does. But the opposition parties lack political power and cannot hold back any development, not even in regions which they control.
The government is well aware that if there are attempts to frustrate development at the regional level, these attempts can be circumvented by central government doing what is not being done at that level.
The problem is not resistance to development. The problem is that the government has opted to place political appointees in a number of Government agencies and these persons are simply not up to the task. They are not performing. Many of them may have worked in certain areas before, but the work has changed so much since their time that they simply cannot function.
Many of them owe their employment to relations they have had with senior government functionaries. Some of them are more interested in filling their pockets and running after skirt tails than understanding the job they have been appointed to do.
Thirdly, many appointees have not been asked to account for what they do. Many of them are not doing anything. Many of them who are paid ‘super salaries’, are outsourcing their work to international agencies. This is unacceptable that persons should be paid salaries which are commensurate with what is paid to foreign consultants, yet they are outsourcing work which they should be capable of undertaking, at that salary level.
Fourthly, many persons are being given jobs which they are not qualified to perform. They are being promoted to the level of their incompetence. You cannot take a person who has worked just few levels above that of a switchboard operator and ask that person to assume supervisory and managerial responsibility over staff.
You cannot take ex-soldiers and put them into positions for which they have had no formal training or experience. They are many inept persons in top government jobs and they compensate for their lack of ability through ‘bluff and puff.’
There are persons claiming to have ‘degrees’ and you want to know whether they are thermometers. It is just heat and coldness which is coming from their direction. There are persons who claim to have “degrees” but cannot write a report. There are most likely persons who have fake qualifications.
The IDB cannot solve those problems. They can only be solved by a government which is not prepared to sacrifice technical competence for political expediency.

2 thoughts on “Qualifications”

Pam October 6, 2017 at 12:00 pm

‘Bluff and puff’ and ‘faked qualifications’. I agree!

A real rebirth of the Burnham era.
Ashwan Singh October 7, 2017 at 8:17 pm

There’s massive incompetence starting from the top. For example take Granger’s statement recently about plantain chip manufacturing.
It seems that this whole Administration is incompetent. Nagamootoo and Ramjattan should do what is necessary to save Guyana. They can !