Meetings, meetings, meetings

May 04, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyana should become the events capital of the West Indies. Events are being hosted in Guyana, it would seem, non-stop. When one ends the other begins.
And guess what, at almost all of these events, invitations are sent out to Ministers of the government. They feel an obligation in most cases not to disappoint the hosts.
Just when do Ministers get the time to do some real work? Hardly a day goes by without some Minister having to attend a function, seminar or conference.
The daily newspapers are swamped with stories of Ministers attending events which really are undeserving of their precious time. These are often events which should be left to the officers in their Ministry to deputize.
Some of these conferences and meetings are boring. Most end up being talk shops. They achieve very little other than making the headlines in the newspapers, as well as on radio and television.
It must take up a considerable deal of the time of Ministers if they have to attend to all these meetings and conferences. They have to go there and sit and listen to long speeches and then perhaps make speeches themselves. Where then will they get the time to attend to the many problems which are on their desks?
Guyanese love to have these sorts of events. You name it and they organize an event to mark the occasion. We have all manner of events being planned. You name it and there is an occasion for it.
On May Day, the Ministers were out in the numbers marching in the streets with the unions and then attending the after-march parties held at various union halls.
Guyana is a small country with lots of problems and all these meetings and conferences and seminars may be important, but they are taking up too much time of the Ministers of the government.
A major foreign enterprise came on a fact-finding mission to Guyana, and guess where they ended up? In the office of the Minister of State. Now they should have been meeting with officials of GO-Invest and not the Minister of State.
The United Nations has a committee on desertification. They are planning some major meeting and are looking for Guyana’s support. But Guyana does not have deserts, Yet, they had to make a courtesy call on the Minister of State.
The newspapers and online media outlets are filled with stories about Minister having to attend the most ordinary of conferences. This practice has to end.
Ministers are important persons. They have more important things to do than to scheduling all these meetings, conferences and training sessions.
When you think about the bad name which Ministers get for not doing what the people feel they should be doing, you have to ask yourselves whether the Ministers themselves are not contributing to this problem by accepting so many invitations to events which really should not require their attendance.
No wonder it is hard for persons to contact their Ministers. They are always busy attending some event. They probably spend more than 16 hours a week outside their offices – this is almost fifty per cent of the workweek for the average worker.
These events reduce productivity. They are also time-wasting. Very little gets done. And Ministers should really learn how to turn down invitations. You cannot please everyone all the time.
Meet the public instead; find out what are their problems and address these problems, not go to a conference just to please somebody.

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