Slow public sector reform hampering T&T’s competitiveness ranking
The slow pace of public sector reform is hampering T&T’s ability to move up on the international competitiveness index, a leading academic from the University of the West Indies’ Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business (Lok Jack GSB) has said.
Speaking to the Business Guardian after a June 26 forum on Transformation in the Public Sector, Lok Jack GSB Leadership Institute director Dr Kamla Mungal said: “The institutions continue to be one of the major factors keeping us in transition, keeping us from moving forward, and it has a great impact. It’s one of the 12 pillars (of the competitiveness index), and unless we can build the institutions, which will create the required platform for businesses to function and operate, we can’t sustain the changes in the private sector.”
She conceded that “yes, there are issues with the private sector itself, but certainly, the more you have an accommodating, and a greater institutional platform, a stronger institutional framework to work with, where people are very clear about the laws; where things will not change when governments come and go,” the more the country will advance on the competitiveness index.
She said investors need to know they “can come in and do business for a long time; those are the things that are needed.”
She said that “what we’re seeing here (in T&T), are pockets of change in the public sector.”
Emphasising the “are” she said: “There are pockets of change. What we need to do is to find a way now to make that seamless across the system.”
She said she wondered if she were to ask anybody what is the vision for T&T if they would have an answer. Yet, “owning and sharing that vision” is what public servants should be able to do. Mungal said that T&T’s ranking on the competitiveness index will not improve until the public sector reforms. “I would say so. It is one of the basic things that need to happen. Institutions need to develop and grow.” She said that without strong institutions, progress will de difficult. She said that the institutions drive progress and if they are not reformed “you’ll have a lag in general” in this country.
The professor said the public sector needs to also focus on “building leadership capacity.” She said: “I think together we need to build leadership capability, and professional capability within the public sector.” She said that they (the speakers at the forum) made a point that a new human resource plan for public sector is on the table. At the start of her presentation she had said that over 40 per cent of Lok Jack GSB students are from the public sector.
Mungal said that what is required “is building a professional public sector; a well resourced public sector,” referring to human resources.
She added that what is also necessary is “developing systems that work.” She said: “There needs to be a constant focus on reengineering systems, so that they work, so that they are more efficient, so that they are more effective. That means bringing in some private sector logic in there. So I think that some of that will (begin) reducing the gap between the public and private.”
There are some countries where the engineers in the public sector lead the private sector, she said. Mungal noted that in countries, like India, where there are many public private partnerships (PPP), the public sector professionals are often better paid and qualified than the private sector professionals. She said they “understand how to manage those PPP contracts” and they use their knowledge to look after the best interest of the public.
She said: “They are not just protectors but they’re facilitators. That’s what we need to do more of. We need to facilitate.”
Mungal began her presentation with the spider graphs from the 2013 World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index results for T&T and Singapore. She said she did this “to show the gap in the institutions. It’s the gap I wanted to show, and also to show that that in terms of our macroeconomy, we’re almost at the same level (with Singapore).” Singapore ranked second in this year’s index but first in 2012 and 2011.
Public sector’s view
The other speakers on the panel at the forum were Independent senator Corinne Baptiste-McKnight, Arlene McComie, permanent secretary, Ministry of Planning and Sustainable Development, and Jearlean John, chairman, Urban Development Corporation of T&T (UDeCOTT), and managing director, Housing Development Corporation.
Early in her contribution, John said: “To say that the public sector is lazy is not true.”
She said from her own experience, very early in the mornings people are there. She said an organisation takes on the DNA of its leader, so that if the leader gets there at 10 am, the day will start after 12 noon. She believes attitudes have changed in the public sector.
McComie agreed, saying when people come from the private to the public sector, “they are surpised at how much work takes place.” She said the public sector has changed significantly, citing the example that 75 per cent of the permanent secretaries in the civil service are now female, which did not obtain in the past.
She said, too, there are also now a lot of contract personnel in addition to the “establishment professionals.”
The Lok Jack GSB auditorium heard that, as part of the new HR plan, contract personnel will be phased out and absorbed into a the new “establishment.” She said that right now, many important jobs such as information and communications technology (ICT), vehicle maintenance and more, do not form part of the establishment, and that the government has found itself having to turn to contract employment to fulfill these functions.
Baptiste-McKnight, who worked in the public sector from 1958 to 1998, said that now, looking back as a consumer, “the service has deteriorated considerably.” She said: “There has not been an effort to keep abreast with the changing environment,” and cited as an example the fact that the Public Service, instead of changing the establishment, has put critical functions in the hands of contract personnel.
“It seems like they just don’t know where they are going. They must reorganise the establishment,” she said.
The independent senator said she sees “demoralisation of staff” as the biggest problem facing the public sector.
John and McComie did not see eye to eye with Baptiste-McKight on some of the issues. Giving some insight into her leadership style, John said she does not allow staff to tell her it is her (John’s) job to motivate them. She said her response to such talk is, “Let your light bill motivate you.”
ALEEM KHAN
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| Date Posted | July 15 2013 |