Future lies with public servants

June 25, 2001

The intention had been to continue the column "From here, where?" (June 11) but "football" got in the way. The least said now about our "game" is best, except to wonder about the commitment of a coach who only now claims, after the comprehensive cut-arse from the USA, that T&T, owing to its size, is neither strong enough nor talented enough to make it. And this after the five-goal robbery in Haiti in 1974 and the one-point near miss in 1989. In any other part of the world, such a coach would not even dare to return to the country that he has so disgraced and discredited. Full stop!

In the previous column "From here, where" we ended claiming that: "T&T, between 1970-1983, probably became the country with the largest percentage of state-owned enterprises in the world, giving rise to an enlarged state bureaucracy and Public Service in order to administrate and manage various operations from steel plant to communications to teak forests, as well as the usual revenue-collecting services typical of the central civil authorities. "Inherent in such an arrangement are factors that shall augur well in our struggle to devise the way forward..." The State of T&T had in fact become the key venture capitalist in that said period. In fact, by 1980, the State fully owned 21 companies, held majority shares in 15, minority shares in another 12, with a total State equity holding of some $1 billion.

Indeed, quite extensive for an economy of scale as small as ours. The question is the social impact of such a development.

For one, the Public Service had to be extended and expanded in numbers and in terms of quality of professional and technical skills in accordance with the requirements emanating from the State's direct managing of the commanding heights of the economy, in conjunction with its normal activity of administrating the central civic authorities and social services and amenities.

Quite quickly the Public Service grew to the point where it was revealed in Parliament that salaries and remuneration to public servants were in fact consuming some 52 per cent of the gross national product. From then to now there has been sporadic talk about cuts in the Public Service and about reforms, but despite all the studies done and attempts to implement change nothing fundamental has happened.

Even the offered early retirement packages did not serve to stem the tide as recruitment soon continued in order to meet the genuine demand, though most of the new recruits were to be placed on contract and/or kept as temporary in order to minimise costs.

The professional state bureaucrat managing state enterprises and the top echelons of the civil authorities, the directors and Permanent Secretaries, accounting officers and administration officers IV and V, etc, are not owners but they are guardians of state property on behalf of the people and taxpayers of the country. That is the psyche and psychology that emanate from their training and their moulding within the culture of the Public Service.

They are skilled planners, project managers and technical officers who manage huge budgets and financial votes according to strict regulations as laid down by the Central Tenders Board and the Auditor General's Department. They set the philosophical mission of ministries and guide these ministries and enterprises onward, despite the vagaries and machinations of political powers who come and go.

They function most times to the annoyance of Ministers who, from since the days of Williams to the present, never seem to want to follow proven and tested regulations which they may deem as red tape and deterrents to their desired haste. But over and over again the regulations win out in the long run and politicians constantly have to eat humble pie or face the results of their ill-advised haste, which usually leads to exposed corruption.

The role of the public sector managers and technical officers is key to any new economic departure, once we recognise that their conservatism is both a positive and a negative, both their strength as well as their weakness.

The private sector companies, not surprisingly, always readily grab such personnel when they leave the Public Service; that is proof enough. Once a bold, new direction is hammered out for the society, they can be entrusted with the task to implement it. That is who they are and what they can do.

Since 1983 with the implementation of IMF conditionalities throughout the region, state enterprises have been privatised or divested, central civil authorities have been downsized, etc, thereby minimising the importance of the role of Public Service professionals and technicians.

We need to reclaim their importance. They are the only people who have in the scheme of things placed the interest of the region as a whole first and foremost. The future will rest largely on their vision.

At present some 300 Caribbean academics, business executives, public administrators, etc are meeting at Half Moon Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica, attempting to devise new business models and reshape Caribbean corporate thinking for the new millennium and to suit the competitiveness of the global economy.

We need to develop a coherent industrial development policy and plan for the Caribbean as a whole, and the people who must spearhead it are the public sector illuminaries who have graced this region from time immemorial.

Those for instance who have conceptualised the Caribbean Development Bank and managed it; those who put together the Eastern Caribbean Community with its most stable single currency and maintained it; those who conceptualised the Point Lisas Development Estate in T&T and managed the development of the petro-chemical industries and the shift from an oil-based to a gas-based economy; those who designed and developed the Unit Trust in T&T as a divestment and mutual investment instrument that is now a model to the whole world; those who pulled Jamaica out of economic devastation back to some stability; those who through the astute managing of the Central Bank of Barbados have made that island the most stable of the smaller territories; and such talents throughout the region that shall have in the course of time to save and steady Guyana.

We know for sure that foreign investors will not do it for us. The case of T&T tells the story. In 2000, according to Central Statistical Office figures, $3.8 billion was repatriated in profits and dividends and interests to foreign concerns.

This is a significant jump from 1974 when, likewise subtracting Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from Gross National Product, the quantum taken out by foreign investors was $1.1 billion. However, when the ratios are compared between the two years, 1974 and 2000, it is evident that the profit "takeout" has in fact intensified.

The region cannot rely on foreign investment, even a senior executive of RBTT Financial Holdings, Keith King, argued last month in Jamaica, advising that local savings such as pension funds and the development of regional financial institutions and investment houses are the only salvation.

Ram Ramesh, a financial analyst, was also at pains to point out that small fragile economies like those in the Caribbean can no longer depend on international agencies like the IMF to bail them out in times of "liquidity crises", so the only hope is to develop our own "domestic financial system" to buffer the shocks of the global economy and of course consistent prudent management of regional "fund-flows." To whom shall we entrust such management? Who has proven historically that they can do it? The answer lies only with what has obtained regionally in the past.

Clearly the global market and globalisation are based on the existence of competing regional blocs around the world. We shall be foolish to continue to ignore that salient fact. We must pull our bloc together likewise. The other key factor is the similarity of culture that knits the blocs into one whole. But that truly is another question.