Introduction
Recently Minister Ashni Singh declared that the PPP will only implement the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) if cabinet gets an influence in the public procurement of goods and services. On the surface this may seem like a reasonable request to which the opposition should acquiesce. Here is the Minister of Finance on the issue of the PPC: “The government’s position on this matter is quite simple, that you cannot exclude the executive from any participation in a process that you may want to turn around and hold the executive responsible for” (SN Nov 8, 2013).
Obviously the minister is reflecting the philosophical position of the PPP which often involves controlling the public service, the private sector, and semi-autonomous agencies. However, there is another path that does not require getting fixated on control, yet allowing the elected government to 
implement effectively its policies and projects. In this column, I would discuss the mechanism of a developmental state (or developmental public service) and briefly extend the principle to the PPC. The central argument of this essay is that an independent PPC and the developmental public service are some of the essential institutions for national unity that go beyond the perfunctory calls for unity. Unity is more likely to be achieved when proper systems, suitable institutions and a better constitution are in place.
The Developmental Public Service
The scholarly literature uses the term developmental state; however, I prefer to use the term developmental public service (DPS). Since the 1970s, excluding a brief period when President Hoyte tried to reform the public service, the service is seen as an extension of the political party in power. It was certainly the case under party paramountcy and it is the case today under elected oligarchy. This is a major impediment of development, one which is often forgotten by many economists working in the mainstream of the profession. However, the great scholars like Alice Amsden, Robert Wade and Peter Evans have explained how the public service has played a crucial role in the early development of South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and other economies. More recently the role of the public service in laying the foundation for development has been analysed for Mauritius, Botswana and Malaysia. Closer to home, the government services have also played a crucial role in modernising and developing Barbados.
It is important that Guyanese understand these examples so that we can see the damage that was done to the public service under party paramountcy and contemporary elected oligarchy. Moreover, this understanding is essential if future governments are going to avoid the serious mistakes of the past. Lacking a developmental public service, it should be no surprise why many of the good ideas of President Burnham failed. The President and cabinet obviously have the vision and often conceptualise them. But it requires the DPS to implement them. Other factors like the perpetual foreign exchange constraint – worsened by the oil shocks of the 1970s – and the non-cooperation by Dr Jagan’s PPP worked against Burnham’s vision. Of course, Dr Jagan offered critical support for nationalisation; but that also worsened the foreign exchange constraint (see Development Watch column, SN Sep 2, 2009). I think the oil shocks certainly played a significant role in preventing many of Burnham’s plans to industrialize the economy. However, that’s the whole point of having a DPS to anticipate, advise and help the executive to mitigate external shocks.
What are some of the features of a DPS? For these I refer to recently published working paper from my alma mater, University of Manchester. The 2013 ESID Working Paper is titled: “Building state capacity for inclusive development: the politics of public sector reform”. According to the authors, Bukenya and Yanguas, the DPS has six features. In a sense the features are institutions that allow businesses to flourish without political favouritism. The institutions reduce the cost of doing business, particularly costs associated with graft and favouritism.
The authors outlined the following as characteristics of a DPS. (i) Bureaucratic capacity to implement policies and to be accountable. This is perhaps the most crucial capacity of the public service. The state would employ workers and technocrats with the capacity to implement. These workers will be embedded yet autonomous of the government and private oligarchs in the society. They will have tenure after going through a probationary period. They will not be paid as short-term contract employees, a mechanism that is used today to control the public service. Promotion will be based on merit and qualifications. They will be properly paid, both in terms of money and status (or a combination of both).
(ii) The state will have the legal capacity such as a fiercely independent judiciary. (iii) It will have the territorial capacity to project power. (iv) It will possess the fiscal capacity to extract tax revenues. The taxing authority is completely independent of political control or foreign interests (it will not accept gifts from foreign companies). The taxing authority will not be used as a political tool against opposition politicians. (v) It will have the capacity to shape societal behaviour. For example, if the political regime thinks rice flour (these days a gluten free hit in the United States) should be promoted, then it is the task of a meritocratic and credible public service to convince the society to use rice flour. (vi) The state must possess the coercive capacity to deter and repel internal and external challenges.
We could add that the public service will not be headed by a politician, rather a technocratic position could be created for the position Dr Roger Luncheon currently holds. The DPS will remain focused and resolute even as the political regime changes. It will not be loyal to any political regime, but it stands ready to implement the vision of the regime.
Public Procurement Commission
In keeping with ideas outlined above, the PPC ought to be an independent body that is not captured by the government or influenced by the opposition. It must be an independent body making sure that public spending is transparent and fairly distributed, minimum conditions, I believe, for achieving national unity. Building the PPC is the first step towards creating a developmental state that is a meritocracy, technocratic, autonomous and yet embedded in the social relations of the country. The elected political regime will come and go; but the PPC must remain neutral overlooking the fairness of government procurements.
Furthermore, the PPC is never involved in creating economic policy. It merely oversees the fairness in the distribution of the people’s money. The PPC will not take away Minister Ashni Singh’s role to conceptualise and implement economic policy and projects. If the minister is serious about policy independence he would see that the essential data sets are collected and reported. Where, for instance, are the new population census data? Where are the unemployment data? What about the analytical and research capacity of the Ministry of Finance, the Planning Unit, the Financial Intelligence Unit, Foreign Affairs, Bank of Guyana, Bureau of Statistics and so on? These are the substances that will allow the minister to conceptualise and implement policy, not control over the PPC, the public service and the semi-autonomous agencies.
