What appears to be a significant reconfiguration of some of the longstanding administrative arrangements that inform the working of the country’s Public Service is reflected in the recent disclosure that the Office of the President, is, in effect, being decentralized. The gist of what President Ali has had to say on the matter is that, going forward, his own Office will be undertaking sorties into the country’s administrative Regions, in order to respond to what his political instincts tell him is the need to do more to ‘bring government to the people.’
According to the President, whenever the OP ‘wagon train’ departs the capital for the various regions, the traveling contingent will include functionaries from strategically selected Ministries and other state agencies whose respective tasks will be to provide strategic support by expediting such matters as fall within the portfolio of the Ministry/state agency from whence they came and which are of particular concern to the residents of the region receiving attention at that time.
Where necessary, the particular assignments that arise from these exercises will be forwarded to the substantive Ministry/State Agency in the capital for particular attention, under the watchful eye of President Ali’s office.
The decision, in the first instance, has to be seen in the context of the President’s various recent pronouncements about government ‘going to the people.” Underpinning that position is what would appear to be his conviction that there are considerable weaknesses in the quality of service offered the populace in some of the more distant regions by some Ministries and state entities and that that quality of service continues to decline, the further you travel from the capital. The President is seeking to put that right. For him, this is an important political consideration.
Mind you, what the President is undertaking might well be construed in some quarters as the stripping of Ministries and other state agencies of much of their substantive authority. Here, however, he appears to be appealing to a particular ‘constituency’ that has, over time, made their feelings publicly known about the quality of service delivered by those Ministries/Agencies headquartered in the capital. ‘Going to the people,’ President Ali may have reasoned, is the preferred option. Here, it would appear that he envisages one-stop-shops in the various regions where representatives of strategically selected state agencies operating with oversight from the Office of the President would focus direct attention on expeditiously addressing the issues affecting persons residing in distant communities with maximum alacrity.
The initiative, if it works, may well win the President, personally, a considerable measure of political capital, though one can anticipate responses from his detractors to the effect that what he is, in fact, doing, is denuding the Public Service of some of its substantive authority.
It will, of course, be impossible to pronounce on just how the ‘decentralization’ of the Office of the President will work until this unfurls completely. What can be said even this early, however, is that the idea sits snugly beside the President’s recent burst of enthusiasm with the idea of doing more to take government to the people. Some may even see it as something of an early tilt at re-election to office.
If, however, on the one hand, a farmer in Region Seven can benefit from a solution to what had been an intractable problem immediately (or at least in the short term) on account of the Office of the President’s ability to ‘short circuit’ the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Agriculture, then President Ali wins himself valuable political points with that constituency.
In the particular instance of last Thursday’s ‘outreach’ in Region Six it is altogether reasonable to assume that the ‘technical teams’ from various Ministries and other state agencies (including the Ministries of Education and Agriculture and GPL and the GRA in the instance of last Friday’s outreach) that were present at the ‘tryout’ would have left the Region with a better sense of the importance of treating the matters that arose there with a certain level of expeditiousness. This is what, seemingly, is the President’s intention.
Not everyone will agree with the President’s particular interpretation of taking-government-to – the – people. Indeed, some may well see this development – as has already been mentioned – as stripping the Ministries and other state agencies of much of their substantive authority even though President Ali may respond to the effect that OP has invoked an oversight prerogative as a result of a perceived lack of expeditiousness on the part of those other state entities that might have been less than diligent in expediting matters put before them by persons in the various regions. Here, one might add, that what, not infrequently, are the ‘red tape’ and stumbling blocks that inhere in the modus operandi of some Ministries and other state-run service entities has long given considerable cause for various other forms of ‘higher up’ official intervention. “At the end of the day you’ll have a direct connection with my office to resolve your issues” President Ali is quoted (Stabroek News, Friday February 3) as saying to his audience in Region Six on Friday.
The meaning in the remark is unmistakable. It takes a more than subtle poke at what many see as the lack of expeditiousness with which some government ministries and other state entities treat with the business of the public. What President Ali appeared to have been saying in his pronouncement on Friday is that he is intervening to put that right. For him it appears to be, as much, about seeking to provide the various regions with assurances that his office will be paying a more direct interest in their concerns. What he had to say is that the initiative is also about placing the Ministries and other state agencies on notice that they are now being required to raise their game.
What may be seen in some quarters as a further ‘watering down’ of the authority of an already significantly discredited Public Service, may well be perceived by the President as one that is likely to please important ‘constituencies’ in the various regions and among potential overseas investors. If that happens a fair measure of political currency could accrue to him, directly. He may well have recruited to his ‘corner’ a constituency that has grown tired of the frustrations long visited upon them by the inefficiencies of some Public Service institutions that have become well-schooled in the practice of placing stumbling blocks (some of these stumbling blocks are ‘marked’ by bribes and kickbacks) in the way of people seeking to get on with their business and with their lives.
