Saying no attention is paid to “efficiency” in the public service, accountant and attorney Christopher Ram on Wednesday called for better measurements and reporting on investments.
Ram made the call when he appeared before the ongoing Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the public service at the Department of Public Service Building, at Waterloo Street, Georgetown.
He was at the time speaking on measures that should be taken to improve the efficiency of the public service in the discharge of their duties to the general public, on which the CoI is tasked with making recommendations.
According to Ram, questions are not raised within the public service about the effectiveness of expenditure and returns on those investments. He noted that instead the emphasis is placed on how much is spent.
“You have only to read the budget speech of various finance ministers to know the focus. They don’t say, ‘We did this.’ It’s, ‘We spent this.’ It is almost as if government efficiency is measured by how much we spend rather than what we deliver,” Ram declared.
The political analyst declared that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” “Until we start measuring our inputs and defining our outputs and relating the two, we will never know how efficient we are,” he added.
He further spoke of lack of dated rules and guidelines for the public service.
“There is the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2003, but were the financial rules themselves reviewed and rewritten?
Were operating procedures defined giving what the objectives should be? Even the rules of the public service, which you are reviewing, are from 1987,” Ram said, while adding that he finds it “difficult to believe that in 28 years there has been no amendment. Even the 1987 rules note that they supersede 1972 and 1976.”
At this point, Commissioner Sandra Jones pointed out that the commission is in receipt of a compendium of circulars which have over time updated the rules.
In response, Ram declared that such a process “leads to chaos.”
He further noted that the average civil servant cannot access these rules and pointed out that he was able to source his copy by “accident.”
“Even the rule making is not efficient,” Ram declared. “You must be able to define, measure, review and amend it,” he added.
Ram also called for the development of a culture of reporting.
“I have never seen a report of the Public Service Commission or Judicial Service Commission. These are things that have to be done. It is a citizen’s right to know. We are paying taxes. Unless you have good measurement, good reporting and good feedback, you will never have efficiency,” he said.
Referring to the public service salaries as a “tragedy,” Ram explained that when there are no efficient measures and adequate salaries, inefficiencies are the result.
He noted that he would love to see a unit in the government machinery that addresses efficiency and to have every ministry and department prepare reports to tell taxpayers what they have done with the resources given to them.
“Spending is not the end of the exercise. Spending money is one of the easiest things. We need a culture of reporting. This extends to workers’ representatives as well.
Ask one of these unions that appear before you when last they submitted a report to their members or the Auditor General. All these unions ought to be asked to present their annual reports. Where are they?” he added.
The CoI was set up by President David Granger to inquire into, report on, and make recommendations on the role, functions, recruitment process, remuneration and conditions of service for public servants.
