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Local Government and Regional Administration
Dear Editor,
Before there was Regional Administration, there were Mayoralties – in Georgetown, New Amsterdam, subsequently Corriverton, Rose Hall Town, Linden, Bartica.
However, one is mostly attracted by the preoccupation with inadequate management by a sequence of Majors (male and female) and their teams of the Capital City – certainly going as far back as the regimes of the Good and Green Party, during which the writer participated in two critical Consultancy Projects. He was also closely engaged in the very comprehensive review of this agency conducted by the illustrious Keith Burrowes (of recent SN publications) which dozens of professional contributors and fellow citizens, and about which leaderships of the day showed minimal interest in the ensuing Report, and consequently have lived, but not necessarily to ‘rue the day’.
Except our citizens are now ruing both day and night the delinquency of the current management as noted in SN’s recent editorial the Agency has continually degenerated over the years with regards to: policy, management, decision-making, professional staffing, recruitment, training, and just about everything else, albeit to the total indifference to the supervising Ministry, whose chronic incompetence and indifference would appear to pale in comparison.
In the latter instance Governments over the past decades, and indeed critics, have respectively failed to report and comment on the organisational performances of the Ten Regional Administrations that is if their individual programmes are adequately publicised. In that connection, there has been the persistent justification about the failure to announce the appointment of Regional Executive Officers, and indeed the process involved. Incredulously responses to several enquiries have insisted that the reason the position is not shown in Annual Budgets (irrelevantly like that of the Fire Chief) is that they are political appointments. Only Deputy is shown. What Parliamentarians on either side of the House seem indifferent about is the range of responsibilities inherent in that post:
Administration
Finance
Education
Health
Agriculture
Meanwhile the position of Permanent Secretary (also a Political Appointment) and which is responsible for one dedicated Portfolio is shown consistently in the Annual Budgets. Then when one checks, some Regional Administrations manage more staff than several individual Ministries.
One does not recall any executive debate about Human Resources Management in any case.
Which brings us back to a Ministry that proves its indifference to be much more comprehensive than the Mayor and City Council. When last has it reported to Parliament, with appropriate recommendations for improved performance. For their consideration, one suggests that the Council be re-ogranised from a ‘political’ to a Technically well-equipped singular apolitical agency. The objective will be to deliver the highest quality of services without discrimination. It should report to a panel of well recognised organisations of an authentic Civil Society including the Press.
Regards,
E.B. John
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