#BTEditorial – 500 days of the Mottley crew

The landmark of 500 days of the life of the current administration of the Government of Barbados offers the opportunity for sober reflection on the performance of the largest Cabinet in Barbadian history.

Granted, these ministers who serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister each entered into existing portfolios or founded new ones in a bid to right a tottering ship of state, nearly foundering on the rocks of incompetence, economic stagnation and apathy.

But now serious questions must be asked as to whether it is not now time to assess whether the individuals entrusted with the general direction and control of the Government of Barbados as currently configured may long continue to bask in the glow of prime ministerial favour.

This is ultimately a question that can only be answered by the First Among Equals in Bay Street.

We do not envy her position. The Prime Minister found herself having to feed all 29 mouths at the political trough when the Labour party inflicted a cataclysmic defeat on the Democratic Labour Party.

Her predecessor in the BLP, Owen Arthur, knew something of this. He spoke of the enormous political pressure Governments face when they are at once cursed and blessed by a supermajority.

So it should come as no surprise that the Prime Minister has had to contend with her own little local difficulty.

Surely, now is the time to grade ministerial performance, given that this quantum of time has passed since their appointments.

Under two ministers of transport, Barbados has had to endure possibly the worst level of bus service in history.

A minister for energy and water resources has been preoccupied with providing potable water to rural districts and farms stricken by drought and try to battle the mess of malpractice in the sewage system – while having to prepare this nation for totally green energy economic in 11 years.

As the minister for environment faces mounting piles of garbage, he struggles to persuade sanitation workers to work under a shift system at a time when taxpayers pay directly for waste and sewage management.

Many members of the Cabinet, some elected and others appointed, have been as visible as they have been active. We look forward to greater fruit of the efforts of the ministers for small business, innovation, agriculture and tourism, among others.

But we suggest that a sober appraisal of the tasks the nation faces as we rebuild a shattered economy would invariably indicate that some rationalisation has become necessary of the ministers chosen to oversee these tasks.

We have been made privy to the Prime Minister’s own frustration with the pace of implementation of ministerial decisions.  We empathise with her impatience for action, her insistence on results, and her expectations of performance.

But we also wonder whether such an unprecedented size of the governmental directorate has not also led to a diffusion of responsibility among its members.

Perhaps the Prime Minister is experiencing the sociological phenomenon in which an individual is given to inaction when many others are present. Each minister assumes that his colleague is either responsible for taking action or may have already done so.

So little gets done.

We accept the risk in making this call for rationalisation of cabinet portfolios – currently around one minister for every 10,000 citizens. Prime Ministers prefer to appear in sole possession of the immense power to match and dispatch ministers. And we do not seek to usurp her unique role.

But if she is to consolidate her position as this nation’s leader, focus public attention on the huge, unfinished tasks still facing us and fashion a nation in her vision, now is the time to adjust the ministerial team.

A Cabinet that must be nimble, cost-conscious and effective can no longer justify its current existence as the largest body in 65 years of ministerial government.

Reshuffle your cabinet, Prime Minister. It is time.