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Is the JLP Cabinet too large?
Mark Wignall
Thursday, September 20, 2007
It has always been my belief that governments operating in a parliamentary democracy cannot cite non-cooperation from the Opposition as a main hindrance to the execution and efficient management of government policy.
A government is elected to lead, and while cognisance must be taken of the precariously slim majority that the JLP government has in entering government, under the rules of our system, power lies with whichever party takes the majority. While it is very obviously painful for the Opposition PNP to know that all it needed was another 5,000 more votes to have its own razor-thin majority, there must be an understanding: an unwritten contract of sorts among those in the Opposition that apart from the reality of the JLP win, there must also be, in the minds of those in that losing party, a relinquishing of power and a recognition that the ball game has changed.
Taken at face value and by its words, the utterances of Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller at last Sunday's abbreviated PNP conference are exactly what we would expect from the party in Opposition. It is the business of the Opposition to scrutinise the governance of the party in power.
As it was said by the Opposition leader, it came across as threatening and far removed from the expected protocols of a party which recently lost an election.
If we follow the graph, no sensible person should be surprised at the outburst, the "threats" and the combative nature of the Opposition leader. It began from the night of the elections and followed through to Bruce Golding's inauguration ceremony. My advice, given in last Sunday's Wignall's World, is that Golding should govern and leave Portia to burn out herself in the PNP.
In quick time the PNP will come to realise that it has a duty to recover its honour. Those in the leadership tier of that party need to recognise that the PNP has a long history of holding government and handling the responsibilities of an Opposition party. They need to spend some serious time in deciding just when it will be most opportune to make the move to rescue the party from the recklessness of its present leader. And it cannot take forever.
Should the JLP make the claim that it cannot rule because Opposition leader Simpson Miller has not given it any breathing room to manoeuvre, I will be the first one to heap scorn on the government and hold it up for ridicule. It was elected to run the operations of government and that is what we must hold it up to.
Shifting focus to the Cabinet, Prime Minister Golding needs to explain the "vacuum" between his campaign pronouncements of lean-and-mean in terms of Cabinet size and the reality. It has always been my observation that newly-installed governments do not approach "closed government" status in sudden, abbreviated stops and starts.
Instead, it is done gradually until the administration removes itself from the people and becomes not the "servant of the people" but the big boss beating the hell out of us. By which time of course we have become used to being bruised and battered.
Had the prime minister simply stated that the job to be tackled far outweighed the need to have four or five ministries less, that is, living up to his campaign promises, the criticisms would have been far less. Criticism in such an instance does not spell doom, especially where a comprehensive explanation would suffice.
It is obvious to me that some members of the Cabinet, like Samuda, Henry, Charles, Smith will not be there in, say, three years' time. Those men represent experience just as much as they, by their very presence, are indicative of a time in our politics that we would much rather forget. Those are the men who would be "handing the baton" to bright, capable youngsters like Warren Newby and his type some years down the road.
Ken Jones' September 18 letter to the Gleaner comparing the size of the Patterson Cabinet (17) with the Golding one (18) highlighted the fact that the Patterson administration in 2003 to 2004 also had 144 consultants being paid $326 million per year; close to five and one half times the cost of the Cabinet.
Lambert Brown's September 19 letter to the Gleaner reminds Jones that his plea for us not to rush to judgement was accompanied by a previous letter written by Jones on the Cabinet costs. That letter was written one month after the October 2002 general election. Here's a quote: "Do we need so many ministers and junior ministers to formulate policies and a programme already laid down in printed manifesto?"
Lambert Brown's warning about not trusting people like Ken Jones is somewhat hollow for two very simple reasons.
First, the 2002 PNP administration was the fourth consecutive one for the PNP. One would have expected that after winning in 1989, 1993 and 1997 the PNP would have been able, after three terms, to fine-tune its efficiency and reduce the Cabinet cost to the taxpayer. Lambert Brown failed to address that salient point.
Second, in Brown's letter, he seemed to have deliberately side-stepped the issue raised by Ken Jones of the whopping consultants' package of the Patterson administration. Then, the average annual pay of the 144 consultants was $2.3 million, in addition to the $3.6 million average per Cabinet member.
Some government consultants I know of worked 10 hours per week, wrote useless reports and had good fun in the job. I am sure, however, that there were others who actually produced. Those were the ones "carrying" the lazy boys in their "criss" new cars driving between meetings at various hotel poolsides.
Value for money must be the motto of the new administration in terms of Cabinet size and cost. And, of course, there is the matter of consultants to be hired by the new administration. We would like this particular matter to be as open and transparent as possible.
Of course, I still expect the prime minister to give us a much better reason for the size of his Cabinet. Telling us what other governments in the Caribbean do is not good enough.
The present administration has begun its life like an open book and I am imploring it to do much more of that and not less.
observemark@gmail.com
Mark Wignall
Thursday, September 20, 2007
It has always been my belief that governments operating in a parliamentary democracy cannot cite non-cooperation from the Opposition as a main hindrance to the execution and efficient management of government policy.
A government is elected to lead, and while cognisance must be taken of the precariously slim majority that the JLP government has in entering government, under the rules of our system, power lies with whichever party takes the majority. While it is very obviously painful for the Opposition PNP to know that all it needed was another 5,000 more votes to have its own razor-thin majority, there must be an understanding: an unwritten contract of sorts among those in the Opposition that apart from the reality of the JLP win, there must also be, in the minds of those in that losing party, a relinquishing of power and a recognition that the ball game has changed.
Taken at face value and by its words, the utterances of Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller at last Sunday's abbreviated PNP conference are exactly what we would expect from the party in Opposition. It is the business of the Opposition to scrutinise the governance of the party in power.
As it was said by the Opposition leader, it came across as threatening and far removed from the expected protocols of a party which recently lost an election.
If we follow the graph, no sensible person should be surprised at the outburst, the "threats" and the combative nature of the Opposition leader. It began from the night of the elections and followed through to Bruce Golding's inauguration ceremony. My advice, given in last Sunday's Wignall's World, is that Golding should govern and leave Portia to burn out herself in the PNP.
In quick time the PNP will come to realise that it has a duty to recover its honour. Those in the leadership tier of that party need to recognise that the PNP has a long history of holding government and handling the responsibilities of an Opposition party. They need to spend some serious time in deciding just when it will be most opportune to make the move to rescue the party from the recklessness of its present leader. And it cannot take forever.
Should the JLP make the claim that it cannot rule because Opposition leader Simpson Miller has not given it any breathing room to manoeuvre, I will be the first one to heap scorn on the government and hold it up for ridicule. It was elected to run the operations of government and that is what we must hold it up to.
Shifting focus to the Cabinet, Prime Minister Golding needs to explain the "vacuum" between his campaign pronouncements of lean-and-mean in terms of Cabinet size and the reality. It has always been my observation that newly-installed governments do not approach "closed government" status in sudden, abbreviated stops and starts.
Instead, it is done gradually until the administration removes itself from the people and becomes not the "servant of the people" but the big boss beating the hell out of us. By which time of course we have become used to being bruised and battered.
Had the prime minister simply stated that the job to be tackled far outweighed the need to have four or five ministries less, that is, living up to his campaign promises, the criticisms would have been far less. Criticism in such an instance does not spell doom, especially where a comprehensive explanation would suffice.
It is obvious to me that some members of the Cabinet, like Samuda, Henry, Charles, Smith will not be there in, say, three years' time. Those men represent experience just as much as they, by their very presence, are indicative of a time in our politics that we would much rather forget. Those are the men who would be "handing the baton" to bright, capable youngsters like Warren Newby and his type some years down the road.
Ken Jones' September 18 letter to the Gleaner comparing the size of the Patterson Cabinet (17) with the Golding one (18) highlighted the fact that the Patterson administration in 2003 to 2004 also had 144 consultants being paid $326 million per year; close to five and one half times the cost of the Cabinet.
Lambert Brown's September 19 letter to the Gleaner reminds Jones that his plea for us not to rush to judgement was accompanied by a previous letter written by Jones on the Cabinet costs. That letter was written one month after the October 2002 general election. Here's a quote: "Do we need so many ministers and junior ministers to formulate policies and a programme already laid down in printed manifesto?"
Lambert Brown's warning about not trusting people like Ken Jones is somewhat hollow for two very simple reasons.
First, the 2002 PNP administration was the fourth consecutive one for the PNP. One would have expected that after winning in 1989, 1993 and 1997 the PNP would have been able, after three terms, to fine-tune its efficiency and reduce the Cabinet cost to the taxpayer. Lambert Brown failed to address that salient point.
Second, in Brown's letter, he seemed to have deliberately side-stepped the issue raised by Ken Jones of the whopping consultants' package of the Patterson administration. Then, the average annual pay of the 144 consultants was $2.3 million, in addition to the $3.6 million average per Cabinet member.
Some government consultants I know of worked 10 hours per week, wrote useless reports and had good fun in the job. I am sure, however, that there were others who actually produced. Those were the ones "carrying" the lazy boys in their "criss" new cars driving between meetings at various hotel poolsides.
Value for money must be the motto of the new administration in terms of Cabinet size and cost. And, of course, there is the matter of consultants to be hired by the new administration. We would like this particular matter to be as open and transparent as possible.
Of course, I still expect the prime minister to give us a much better reason for the size of his Cabinet. Telling us what other governments in the Caribbean do is not good enough.
The present administration has begun its life like an open book and I am imploring it to do much more of that and not less.
observemark@gmail.com
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