Dear Editor,
I note the flimsy and inadequate response by the Ministry of Housing and Water to the water utility fiasco appearing in Stabroek News on 17th February 2007. The Honourable Minister, Mr. Harry Narine Nawbatt, reiterated that the management contract was terminated due to a lack of performance.
The Minister’s response proceeded to list some basic statistics used as a basis for comparative reasons to drive home this point. The explanation behind these figures deserves much scrutiny. After all, the Minister and the Board would agree that management is about finding out the causes of failures so they are not repeated in the future. This issue at the company is as simple as building a house.
It is only logical that when one hires a contractor to build a house he is required to execute the mandate since he is contracted specifically for that purpose. He is given a plan to work with which he is expected to follow and he is tasked with realizing the design of the plan set out before him. As much as he is contractually bound to undertake this, it is the client who desires the house that is bound to provide the necessary resources and other materials needed for the construction. The success of the contractor is dependent on the fulfilment of the client’s obligations to provide the materials to achieve the set target and allow the contractor to build as per design and specifications.
It must be understood, however, that there is a clear distinction between the roles of both parties. One is contracted solely to render a service and the other is obligated to facilitate the contractor in all necessary ways in achieving the targets.
If the contractor is provided with all the necessary resources by the client and yet does not deliver on the actual design then he would have failed to achieve the target. The contractor should be held accountable in this regard.
On the contrary, if the client does not provide the contractor with all of the resources needed for the construction of the house and the contractor arrives on site to work but is delayed which significantly compromises the timeline for achieving the target, it is the client’s failure and neglect to provide the resources and finances that would have resulted in the failure of the contractor to achieve targets. It is clear that the client is responsible for this and not the contractor.
The other issue is that it is unrealistic for the client to expect the contractor, who is the expert in his discipline, to construct an intricately designed 8000 sq ft mansion in one month or a stadium in six months. The issue of realism of the task is a critical variable in the equation for achieving success. This analogy is representative of the current situation at GWI.
The water sector requires massive capital investment. Was there a detailed plan regarding continuous pledges and sources for investments in the water sector? Where would the money be coming from and how fast does one take to conclude all documentation and formalities to access funds needed to achieve these targets? This process by itself is excruciatingly time consuming which reduces the timeline for successfully achieving the targets. Therefore, a five year period was comical for policy makers to set in the first place. Do not blame another for trying to do the impossible because accepting unrealistic targets does not exonerate the others from formulating it in the first instance. This begs the question, why did the policy makers cram all of these objectives and targets in such a short period of time?
The Ministry’s res-ponse referred to the management contract targets, which at the natural conclusion of the contract, not yet reached, have been previously published as failing to achieve a 90% revenue collection rate, reduce non revenue water to 25%, achieve a disposal efficiency of 2%, meter 85% of the base customers and deliver potable water to 80% of the Amerindian settlements. The article stated that “customer services such as routine billings and repair of leaks continued to produce dismal figures.”
It is quite appalling to see that the Honorable Minister and the Board seem to be resorting to making excuses and laying false trails to conceal their own inadequacies. The article indicated that the management contractor failed.
I challenge the Minster and the Board of the utility to tell the Guyanese people why the contractor failed. Mr. Nawbatt and members of the Board, you owe an explanation to the Guyanese people on this matter. What resulted in the contractor’s failure to achieve set targets? Statistics are mischievously published but the reasons for the so called failure are crucial. After all, if you know that they fail then you must know the reasons for this and I am sure other management teams would learn from the contractor’s mistakes and avoid repeating the same.
The Ministry and the Board would find it extremely difficult to accept the challenge of telling the Guyanese people the reasons for the contractor’s so-called failure. They will find this difficult because the cause of GWI’s failure will point directly to them and not the contractor as they want us to believe. After all, the client did not provide the materials to the contractor.
Did other executives and senior managers fail likewise? The success or failure of a company is not due to individuals but comprehensive. If sections of the management failed why didn’t the Board dismiss them for non-performance? Why are they kept as part of the workforce?
The Minister and the Board should tell the Guyanese people why the contract wasn’t terminated earlier if poor performance was the main contention. I am sure that whatever group presented analytical reports to management must have done other yearly reports as well. I am sure that the reason is because they know that the task was really unachievable given the available resources.
It is no secret either within the management that over time the company’s strategic plan was subject to revision during the contractor’s tenure. The Board should guide the new Minister on the occasions these were done and the impediments the contractor faced each time. Then he might want to revise his comment that “it is too late to make those claims” of unrealistic targets. I am sure that when the Board members accept the challenge then the public will judge for itself whom we should hold accountable for GWI’s poor performance. I also noticed that other critical issues were conveniently not addressed in their response.
Decisions made by management are subject to the Board’s approval and cabinet’s approval in some cases. Therefore, if the company ought to engage in business decisions to yield the results desired then it is highly possible that some decisions made by management would not have been approved, resulting in obstruction of the plans designed to achieve targets. A non political business would certainly have found ways of recouping arrears and achieving 90% revenue collection targets. But organizations that have political policy makers in the hierarchy would not necessarily approve plans that will grant success in achieving targets if the plans were not politically sound. Therefore, political soundness takes precedence over effective business decisions.
The statistics provided were nothing but mere regurgitation by the Ministry and the Board to vindicate themseves from the utility’s woes and poor performance. Again I reiterate that the Ministry of Housing and Water and the company’s Board should tell the Guyanese why and how the contractor failed. It has been said that the decision to terminate the management contract was taken by a meeting of only two Board members and whilst the Chairman was absent from the country. Is this true? Is this a competent way of governing Guyana’s most important utility? Why did no other Board members attend the meeting and did all Board members know of this meeting? Please do tell.
Yours faithfully,
(name and address
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