Garth Rattray | ‘Anju’ this and ‘Anju’ that

There is a plethora of viral videos lambasting Prime Minister Andrew Holness. They have a lot of reach and speak of Jamaica’s prime minister in extremely raw, rude, disrespectful, and sometimes sickeningly lewd terms. The videos are saying ‘Anju’ this, and ‘Anju’ that. Many people are (directly) blaming him for any and everything that goes wrong and/or continues to go wrong in Jamaica.

I know that the buck stops with the prime minister. Although he is ultimately responsible for managing our little island, others are tasked with handling many of the things for which he is being blamed. As the country’s leader, he bears the brunt of the criticisms for everything; but the people directly in charge of various governmental undertakings and oversights are getting a free pass.

The day-to-day running of the country is carried out by (ensconced) public servants (including technocrats). The advice given to the ministers of government and to the prime minister come from these people. Sometimes the big decisions that impact all of us come from them.

I remember when Mr Audley Shaw inadvertently racked up $8.34 million worth of cell phone bills in just one year while he was our finance minister. It turned out that the bulk of the bills came from data roaming. Everyone jumped on him, but I did not. It is very easy to unknowingly accumulate massive amounts of data roaming if you do not realise that you must go into the phone menu and turn off ‘data roaming’. And you also need to be aware of the possibility of connecting to available (free) Wi-Fi wherever you go.

RAISED AN ALARM

Although Mr Shaw made an understandable mistake, the bills spanned an entire year. Each and every month a huge bill was submitted, scrutinised, approved, signed off by public servants and paid for with our hard-earned money. Any conscientious public servant, with the interest of his/her country in mind, would have raised an alarm on the very first bill. This would have been immediately investigated and nipped in the bud. But sadly, many of our public servants only do the barest minimum to get paid. Mr Shaw tried to make financial restitution for his faux pas. Did any heads roll because of this costly incompetence? No!

If this same situation occurred in a private organisation, where a top manager made a similar error, the person or persons responsible for signing off on those extremely high bills would have been fired for incompetence, and for having cost the company so much money. But many public servants do not think that way; they feel safe in their jobs and view ‘the government’ as possessing a bottomless pit of financial reserves that can be easily replenished by squeezing taxpayers.

Public servants responsible for allowing/condoning or missing/overlooking expensive spending/mistakes without initiating investigations and taking corrective measures, should be dismissed. If underlings were held responsible for their incompetence, our country would avoid massive and/or unnecessary overspending, and corruption.

This is the sort of thinking, or lack of thinking, that is evident within our government system. Those nameless, faceless people who run things behind the scenes remain in their chairs from one administration to the next. They remain safe, secure, untouchable, unscrutinised, wasteful, and sometimes corrupt and/or incompetent, no matter who is at the helm.

My sister once worked in an essential government department that dealt with extremely important, sensitive, and often urgent matters concerning the public. She was not liked because she always cleared her desk quickly. Many other workers complained that she was doing her work too fast, messing up things for them and making them look bad. Of course, she left.

MAKES ENEMIES

When a top public servant works hard and does so without fear or favour, he/she makes enemies. When that public servant does not muck around and is of impeccable character, he/she makes enemies. When no one can intimidate or bribe that public servant, he/she makes enemies. When a public servant works while keeping in mind that he/she is working for every citizen of Jamaica, he/she makes enemies. When such a public servant seeks to save the country precious money, he/she makes enemies. Thankfully, we have many hard-working and honest public servants who look out for the interest of our citizens…but sadly, an indeterminate number of public servants are only doing their perfunctory duties day after day after day, and pacing themselves until the end of the workweek.

If responsible public servants were doing their jobs, the order and discipline in society would result in reduced criminality. Errant politicians would be kept in check. If public servants were doing their jobs diligently, squatter and landownership crises would not occur. People would not be able to build in certain areas, and those in need of land would have been accommodated somewhere.

The performance, or lack thereof, of some public servants is one of the reasons why political parties are sometimes unable to get things done that would benefit us all. There would be little or no wasting of scarce resources on failed projects. We need to approach this problem with a fair and neutral system of ongoing assessment, oversight, and most of all, accountability.

Any political party that allows some public servants to underperform and operate under their own regime will waste tax dollars, become embroiled in scandals, prone to corruption, and eventually lose favour with the electorate.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.