All of the evidence bared during last Tuesday’s interface between functionaries of the Govern-ment Analyst Food and Drugs Department (GA/FDD) and the Guyana Revenue Authority – Customs and Trade Administration ostensibly to attempt to refine the relationship between the two state agencies in matters pertaining to the importation of safe foods, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices into Guyana suggested that the engagement was long overdue and ought to have happened much sooner.
For reasons which were ill-explained, there was no ministerial representation or even the presence of a Permanent Secretary at the forum. In circumstances where these kinds of discourses can serve as invaluable tools to help shape policy-making in a key area of state functions, the absence of any such functionary might easily be construed as being reflective of the level of official interest in the issue under discussion.
That both entities took this long to sit together to work out the modalities of collaborating with each other in what is an important national exercise of keeping consumers safe from sub-standard imports, is an indictment on both agencies and one which might well provide clues to deeper weaknesses in other equally important collaborative arrangements between and amongst state entities. Public service reform initiatives would do well to take these considerations on board.
It was disturbing, indeed shocking, to discover that Customs Officers, most of them relatively senior functionaries directly involved in matters to do with expediting the clearance of goods at ports of entry were receiving, seemingly for the first time, information governing the importation of food and drugs into the country. This is information which has long been enshrined in the law and which the Customs Administration ought to be using as a ‘rule of thumb’ in the day-to-day execution of its duties.
Of course, it is not for this newspaper to say which of the two agencies is culpable in what appears to have been a breakdown in communication. Suffice it to say that the situation represents an unflattering example of just how efficient the procedures are for the discharging of some of the state’s responsibilities.
During the exchange, however, there did seem to be a genuine desire on both sides to at least try to remedy the shortcomings and both GA/FDD Director Marlan Cole and Assistant Comptroller of Customs (Airport and Wharves) Simone Beckles made informed contributions to what turned out to be, potentially at least, a useful exercise.
Much of Cole’s presentation focused on making the point to the Customs Officers that the powers of the GA/FDD are rooted in the Food and Drugs Act. His point being that the department was acting with strict official cover and that its prerogatives should not be taken lightly. Beckles, evidently a thoughtful functionary with a wealth of experience, sought in her interventions from the floor to address some of the thorny issues which, it seems, have sometimes made relations between the two state agencies tense and uncomfortable.
There are issues on both sides. On the side of the GA/FDD there is the impoverishment of the organization, the unfathomable refusal of its parent entity, the Ministry of Public Heath, to intervene decisively to enhance both the human resource capacity as well as upgrade its technical requirements. There can be no question that in an age of increasing pressures on countries to provide quality assurances in the area of food exports, for example, that the GA/FDD is incapable of functioning anywhere near as effectively as it ought to be, the efforts of its Director and staff notwithstanding. More than that there continues to be persistent reports of ‘higher up’ interventions to circumvent the GA/FDD in the process of questionable arrangements for the release of some consignments of goods.
Customs, meanwhile, is fighting its own demons which include the widespread view that numbered amongst its functionaries are officers whose priorities are not necessarily linked to the effective execution of the business of the state. Regrettably, issues of trust arise here.
Presumably well-intentioned gestures like last Tuesday’s forum, however, will not, in themselves, cut it. Government has, over the years, cultivated and fiercely embraced the habit of making grand but empty gestures. So that the convening of a forum out of which much discussion came means nothing unless this is followed by concrete action in the immediate term to strengthen the staff and significantly upgrade the technical capacity of the GA/FDD, create a structured regimen of sustained consultations between the two agencies and seek through various image enhancing means to reduce the trust deficit which the Customs Authority has suffered for so many years. Those are goals that must derive from sincere policy determination and in this particular instance, an official commitment to enhancing the safety levels of our imports. What is more than a little comforting as has already been mentioned is that numbered amongst the officers on both sides are functionaries who appear to be both capable and committed. Of course, and this would appear to apply much more to the GA/FDD than to the Customs Administration, the efficient and effective execution of the work of the state cannot no matter the extent of insistence to the contrary be separated from the extent of the compensation for one’s efforts.
