A spurt of impropriety, abuse and bad management in public administration and in State-owned companies has triggered concern over the squandering of public funds. At times it seems as if public administration has become rudderless.
Direct or indirect political involvement or interference is suspected in most cases, giving rise to mistrust and scepticism in government moves or decisions. The irony is that one of Labour’s strongest election platforms was good governance, precisely the rock over which the government appears to be stumbling so early in this legislature.
Half-baked decisions, refusal to publish reports or agreements in time, and much else besides, have diluted its “good governance” commitment. This administration started on the wrong foot right from the start when it chose to have – without any justifiable reason – to have the biggest Cabinet on record.
The Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry was reflecting the mood of a growing number of people when it expressed concern over reports of a number of cases of flagrant abuse, bad management, dubious decision processes, conflicts of interest and outright lack of coordination between different elements of the public sector.
It did not mince words when it said “continued reports emerging in the press suggest that the situation has, at some point gotten out of control”.
What seemingly irks the Chamber, and indeed the country, is that, as it has remarked so well, for far too long successive governments from both sides of the political spectrum had condoned and indeed seemingly encouraged the squandering of public funds.
These are very strong words but similar statements made over the years in an effort to make administrations pay greater attention to propriety in the conduct of government business have not been acted upon strongly enough.
There is usually no shortage of declarations, promises and commitments by political parties that they mean to get things done well, however, the moment they are in power they appear to get blinded by the urge to move ahead without paying due attention, at all times, to standard procedures.
The Chamber made a well-reasoned argument when it said that, while businesses are expected to comply with all the legal responsibilities, patterns of what it called dubious judgements in the public sector are disheartening.
Take, for example, the latest inexplicable case of a call for quotations made by a government company, Wasteserv, for the supply of potable groundwater for the sprinkling of roads and watering of trees. How could anyone at Wasteserv fail to realise that they can easily make use of second-class water for the sprinkling of roads?
When this newspaper flagged the blunder, the Environment Ministry quickly distanced itself from the matter and said that “after due consideration of the points you raised, it has been decided to withdraw the call for quotations”. A new one will be issued.
Of course, the administrative nerve centre at Castille cannot possibly have its antennae trained on each and every action taken at ground level of the administration but there appears to be a sudden deterioration in the quality of administration. Who is going to take serious notice of the repeated warnings that the National Audit Office makes about lack of adherence to policies, weak internal control structures, with limited checks and balances, and lack of proper audit trail?
The highest political echelons are not setting the right example either, as evidenced by the string of “mistakes” the government is taking in the normal course of piloting new projects involving the government.
Greater administrative and political accountability is urgently called for to reverse the present trend.