Thompson points to implementation deficit within some ministries

Senator Elizabeth Thompson has identified failures in the implementation of policies, decisions and projects in various ministries that have resulted in frustration for Barbadians and avoidable spending by the Government.

And she suggested that the coordinating oversight expected of the country’s four senior ministers will help to reduce those inefficiencies and prevent “significant challenges” for projects in the pipeline.

Supporting a resolution to approve the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Remuneration and Allowances) Order, 2022 that outlines the schedule of remuneration and allowances for ministers, the former Government Minister on Monday said that while politicians are often the target of criticism when projects are not executed correctly, they were often not the ones to blame.    

Using the example of potholes identified by cones, flags, barrels and other objects to signal the danger but yet are still not repaired, she pointed to problems in the implementation of infrastructure works and other projects, even when there was budgetary allocation.

“It is going to be important for senior ministers to strengthen coordination and management and implementation at that level. So, if you and I drive up Broad Street or Roebuck Street or in communities, and we see these cones, we see the flags, we see the barrels, don’t the supervisors who are responsible for these particular areas see them and feel that they should act on them, or are they driving around or walking around a different Barbados?

“That is really the reality of implementation in government. The politicians are being cursed – or as we would say getting buse real bad – for these particular problems, but there are issues relative to how we manage resources, there are issues relative to how we deploy our human resources, and there are issues relative to how people at the supervisory level and management level –whether it’s middle management or senior management – perceive themselves as agents of policy implementation, and agents of effective transformational change in the areas in which they are working,” Senator Thompson argued.

She said if there was conversation between the implementing agencies as well as cooperation and contradiction, Government could save a significant amount of money,  the country would be better served, and “things that appear simple and are, in fact, simple but constitute significant irritants and sometimes risks” could be eliminated.

Senator Thompson said without someone taking “helicopter oversight” of the $122 million in infrastructural projects to be executed by the public sector, $1.4 billion in projects to be carried out by the private sector, and other projects in the pipeline, could cause significant challenges, both social and economic.

Senator Thompson, therefore, sees the introduction of senior minister coordinating roles as “a mechanism for strengthening implementation in the structure and system of governance and government”.

“Often, one hears policy articulated or promises made, and while it is the politicians who articulate and bear the responsibility and the blame where there is no delivery, there is often a tremendous gap between the policy intention and the policy implementation. And it is not the politicians who are responsible for the actual day-to-day implementation.

“And, therefore, I see this as a measure intended to structure and deliver on implementation and on the policy commitments made in the manifesto which the Barbados Labour Party presented to the public of Barbados in the last election,” said the Deputy President of the Senate.

Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw has coordinating responsibility as a senior minister for Infrastructure; Attorney General Dale Marshall is senior Minister coordinating for Governance in Cabinet; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Dr The Most Honourable Jerome Walcott is the senior minister coordinating for all Social and Environmental Policy and Minister of Energy and Business Development Kerrie Symmonds serves as senior minister coordinating the Productive Sectors.

“This means that the ministers do actually have to coordinate, that they actually have to work with strategic plans,” Senator Thompson said.

“These coordinate with the strategic objectives of the Barbados Labour Party as laid out in the Estimates and as highlighted and reinforced in the Budget that was presented to the country over the course of the last few weeks.” (DP)