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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 10 2002 : 12:50:54 PM
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Of contractors and all
Saturday, August 10, 2002
BY WINSTON WITTER
WE seem today to be faced with the unlikable task of taking on board seriously efforts to understand the nature of government and governance in a new era as increased property taxes are being placed on our doorsteps. For, yesterday it was simply leaning toward government to do almost everything from social development to economic rebuilding and to standing up against the onslaught of whatever evil forces ready to clobber us in the likes of earthquakes or hurricanes. Now, there is the beginning of a particular kind of behaviour which our people take as the exercise of wicked government.
Gone are the days when we used to discuss quite openly the ideological trappings of United States' capitalism and Russia's communism qua socialism which they thought we needed to adopt for the trek toward survival of the human race. We must, however, step away from reviewing the activities of our governors purely on the basis of an old style post-colonial plan to replace them for love of East or West. Rather, we must move our criticisms to a new plain of present and future development under the curtain of rapid changes in this part of the hemisphere, having decided with the rest of the world that capitalism is really it. This is not so new a platform of development. The shift from state control and partisan political leadership styles for entry into the positive role of citizens for development of their socio-economic organisations in public management has long been the hallmark of modern capitalist states.
If, for instance, we take a deep look at what mainly concerns critics of the political directorate in response to review of their current failures, we find that corruption and scandals have been given priority attention. We also have lately found out that this agenda of concern has openly taken over major entities in the United States of America even with close connection to the president and his colleagues.
Without pointing to details of the negative management approaches in those entities to the north, we wonder whether current political critics, should they take over the reins of power in Jamaica, are going to put on the back-burner links with the US economy and their financial players until fresh elections are held. Of course, we do not expect our new saints of virtue to hug up agencies and individuals who have been negatively caught in the tills of their country. We need to have a proper sign-off on matters such as these so that we can be happy that our own financial players, be they contractors or not, will escape character assassinations on the grounds of unsubstantiated claims of impropriety in contractual dealings with aims of pillaging the public purse. Let the chips fall where they may. Indeed, we should not accept that such people who are so accused ought to be stopped from doing their businesses with government purely as a result of mere speculations that they are involved in untidy contracts with government. Again, we have not been informed about our local critics' proposals in respect to instances in the United States where the government has clamped down on managerial deficiencies leading to corruption. We are yet to be told whether our present Opposition teams are in support of the Bush administration and their middle-of-the-road treatment of economic players who have been found wanting.
Additionally, we would like to be informed about their planned treatment of investors in Wall Street whose ownership scope and structures take them within the arena of those who have acted "improperly" in their managerial tasks for survival in a new economic regime. We must be very careful that we do not throw our important economic actors out merely on the basis of either incompetence or inability to cope with the vicissitudes of a free market by a state system which itself has not been properly transformed into the new framework of economic management which confronts us. It does not matter who our local contractors are, whether they may be Black Brothers Inc, Donwills Contractors, Y P Seaton and Associates, Tankweld Construction or any other. What is absolutely important is whether the work of those contractors can stand up to the test of time.
It seems clearly that we should have been concerned about whether their substantive work on the ground was able to stand up very well against the flood rains about a month ago which ravaged a number of houses in the parishes declared disaster zones. Even in such circumstances where flood rains have washed away houses and belongings, detailed investigations should take us into the main reasons as to why the losses, if this is the case. The fact that individuals have obtained contracts from government to carry out infrastructure development should not at all be the sole reason for engaging into the type of critical analysis which looks alone at political relationships but should take us beyond to levels which determine the scope, intensity and suitability of the work carried out.
There are those who would not want to think carefully about what it is that we have chosen government to do. But we have to participate in the exercise of electing individuals to carry out a particular set of skills on our behalf in a very new deal and style of public management. An important factor which we need to put on the agenda of concerns is the way in which we take greater controls on how the state is to be managed in a modern, capitalist environment. In this respect, we should seek to shift seriously away from the traditional centrality of the role of the political parties with charismatic leaders at the helm to control our own affairs in the management of the state. We must realise that it is now time for independent citizens to be seen as the main tools for decision-making at the local levels which is then to be taken at the national level where political choices for management should be correctly made. It is against this background that we expect citizens to look seriously at the important task they have before them to elect individuals who are to make sure that tax dollars are properly spent in their best interest. We are now in a new era.
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Karl |
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Taken from the Jamaica Observer -
