Bureaucracy gone bananas!

Nov 21, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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…Peeping Tom

kaieteur News- Every morning, the government wakes up, stretches its arms, and spends one billion dollars just to keep the lights on. Not on rocket ships to Mars, not on free pizza Fridays for the nation, but on the machinery of bureaucracy—an engine so bloated it guzzles cash like a Hummer at a gas station. And this is one billion dollars per day.

The question isn’t how this spending happens but rather why we keep enabling it. The public service, for all its noble intentions, increasingly feels less like a service and more like pouring money down the drain. Thousands of government workers do diligently contribute. But there are thousands of others who have perfected the art of doing little or nothing. Most of their time are found with their heads buried in a smart phone, scrolling social media for hours each day, using free internet connectivity provided by guess who? Yes, the government!

And let us not forget that special group within the public service: the square pegs in round holes. These are the folks hired because they’re someone’s cousin’s best friend’s uncle or they have the right connections. They roam the corridors of public offices armed with all kinds of fancy titles. Their productivity levels make a turtle look hyperactive. And yet, there they are, part of the billion-dollar payroll, clapping themselves on the back for successfully attending meetings that produce nothing but more meetings.

The question is: what are we, the taxpayers, getting for our money? A better question: what aren’t we getting?

Now, I know invoking Donald Trump’s might raise eyebrows. But he is planning to establish a Department of Government Efficiency. Essentially, it will end up being established to figure out which parts of the government could be pruned, streamlined, or sent to pasture. In Guyana, we’re overdue for such an approach. Reforming the public service should start with simple questions: “What do we actually need? What services is this Ministry or Department or Agency providing to the public? Do we really need two persons to do one man’s job?”

Then comes the hard part: cutting loose what we don’t. It’s not about mass firings but about aligning roles with actual needs. Automating processes, incentivizing remote work, and introducing metrics for accountability—these are not radical ideas. They’re survival tactics for a government hemorrhaging money. Automation, my friends, is not just for sci-fi movies. Half the forms and processes clogging the public service could be handled online with a few clicks and minimal human intervention. You shouldn’t need a convoy of clerks to approve a single license or stamp a document—just a decent Wi-Fi signal and some software smarter than your average square peg.

Imagine the savings if certain sectors transitioned to virtual work. Employees could work from home, skipping the daily commute to offices where the AC works better than the staff. Plus, the government could save on maintenance and security costs, electricity, furniture, fuel and vehicles and stationery—finally putting an end to the mysterious disappearance of staplers that rivaled the Bermuda Triangle.

Now, before anyone panics, let’s address the elephant in the room: downsizing. Nobody likes to hear it, but sustaining this one-billion-dollar-per-day circus isn’t just inefficient; it’s unsustainable. The payroll itself is a behemoth, devouring resources that could otherwise go toward education, healthcare, or, dare I say, actual development.

Some argue that the public service functions as a welfare program in disguise, offering jobs to those who might otherwise face unemployment. While that’s a commendable goal, it should not come at the expense of efficiency. Welfare programs are about empowerment, not enabling mediocrity.

So, what’s the way forward? For starters, a thorough audit. Figure out who’s doing what, where, and why. If there’s no good answer to the “why,” it’s time to reassign or reconsider.  look at whether the same work can be done by less persons, even if it means paying them more Next, get rid of the square pegs in round holes as well as all the sinecure appointees, including some of those who need to be in geriatric care. The next step would be to ask how we can certain things cheaper and better and, at the time, whether those outsourced services can be more economical if done in-house. Then, establish key performance indicators—actual metrics to measure whether we’re getting value for money. There is a rule that says 20% of the staff do 80% of the work. Every head should identify the top 20 persons that do the most and best work around them. Such a shortlist will make creating a redundancy list easier.  Lastly, embrace technology and innovation. If Guyana is serious about modernisation, it must stop treating public service reform like a taboo topic.

Anything less spells disaster down the road. The one-billion-dollar-a-day public service is madness. Financing inefficiency on this scale is wasteful. It’s time to rethink, reform, and realign. Because if we don’t, the joke isn’t on the bureaucrats; it’s on the government and us.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

(Bureaucracy gone bananas!)

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• Department of Government Efficiency, free internet connectivity, Peeping Tom, pizza Fridays, public service

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