Improving governance

Martin Henry, Contributor

Poor Paulwell. Sitting, standing, or flying, the minister for energy is getting what the duck gets!

Speaking to journalists at Gordon House last week on the EWI contract imbroglio, the embattled minister (and 'embattled', as used here, is not just journalistic cliché) told them: "It's like I am a sitting duck. I have to await a process. The Jamaican people have me under pressure to get the price of electricity down. It's not the OCG (Office of the Contractor General). It's not the OUR (Office of Utilities Regulation). Anything that I do, my reputation is on the line. But the fact is, it cannot be that my hands are tied behind me."

Ducks don't, in fact, have hands. But never mind the mixed metaphor, Paulwell's ministerial reputation is taking some big licks - again. And we said same Jamaican people had better understand that tinkering with the current operations of the JPS will not bring the price of electricity down.

COST OF FUEL

The fundamental factor driving the cost of electricity is the cost of fuel. The Energy World International (EWI) 381-megawatt plant is to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), much cheaper than oil, if the plant can get built. The OUR has recommended late bidder EWI for the job. And, so as not to get sued, the sitting duck minister has signed the contract.

The minister is plugging for waste to energy and for more renewable energy. Neither can make any big input into the energy grid, certainly not in the short term, and are at best sentimental supplements to the energy needs of the country and which could end up more costly than oil.

Paulwell is also cheering coal, which comes with the plus of being cheaper than oil and with vast reserves, but the minus of being dirtier.

But it is not the technicalities of energy that have the attention of this column today. The duck, having declared the procurement process "unworkable", is off to Cabinet this week with a new policy on procurement to give the minister a greater and more defined role in the procurement process. Quack! Quack!

The minister is complaining bitterly that it is unfair to him to have the task of delivering on cheap energy when his only role in the process is to grant a licence. And even that as directed by a regulatory body. Responsibility without authority, which everyone in management knows is a tried and tested formula for failure.

Procurement, Minister Paulwell says, has to be separated from the role and function of a regulator. But who's listening? By popular edict, the minister and the executive of Government must be corrupt until proven otherwise. And clean-hands oversight public agencies like the OUR and the OCG must hold them to task at whatever cost.

As everyone must now know, I have cast in my lot with the fight against corruption as a member of National Integrity Action (NIA). But this has done nothing to mute my consistent warning that actions to rein in, and to reduce, corruption must not cripple the ability of the Government to perform. We have elected a government to deliver effective governance and which is accountable to the people. While we must reasonably do what is necessary to make Government less corrupt, more transparent and more accountable, such as the Integrity Commission, 2014, Bill now before the Parliament is seeking to accomplish, we must balance that with protecting the capacity of the Government to perform and to deliver.

EVALUATING THE SYSTEM

Minister Paulwell wants a review and reassessment of the procurement rules and system. He is making that call, which I have long supported and made myself, with a great deal of public prejudice stacked against him. It must, because he and fellow ministers want more and better loopholes through which to manipulate the system.

There has been a large accumulation of problems and shortcomings and weaknesses in the procurement system noted by policymakers, public-service managers, procurers of goods and services for Government, and suppliers making a general overhaul in the light of experience long overdue.

I would love to see what Phillip Paulwell has in his procurement policy proposal to Cabinet. And I hope he will find more courage to follow it through than his colleague minister in finance, for the financial services withdrawal tax.

And speaking of improving governance, Minister Peter Phillips would have had better success with the withdrawal tax proposal had it been properly sold as a collective Cabinet decision (which it is) and debated and voted in the Parliament (which it should be, with Parliament as the Standing Finance Committee).

The structure of the Budget Debate as a series of discrete, staged speeches by Government and Opposition playing politics and playing to the gallery allows no such collective decision making by the legislature. The public call for consultation on tax measures, which came up here and there during The Great Withdrawal Tax Furore, is nothing but childish ignorance. Nowhere in the world can government proceed by asking citizens how they should be taxed.

It is good to see the Parliamentary Internship Programme coming back. This is an initiative between the University of the West Indies (UWI) Department of Government and the Parliament that has in the past, and will soon to have again, graduate students providing research services to parliamentarians.

My only beef with the programme is that it is exclusive to the UWI and its Department of Government. There is nothing about the research needs of parliamentarians which would confine the supply to advanced students of government or to one institution. But one can understand that UWI initiated it.

The internship programme underscores the need for support for better performance in governance.

Under severe media-mediated pressure, the Parliament is terrified of improving its own conditions for greater effectiveness and better performance. The pressing need for a new and better appointed building has been shelved. The Government (executive and legislature) is too afraid to push it! I was properly 'traced off' by an indignant reader when I last wrote about the need for a new Parliament building. There is no provision for research support staff. The news item about the return of the internship programme carried by The Gleaner last Wednesday forgot to say who pays. I'd be surprised if it is the Governement of Jamaica!

Parliamentarian Fitz Jackson, who is co-chair of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Parliamentary Assembly and co-president of the ACP-EU (European Union) Joint Assembly, in welcoming the return of the programme, said when he goes to international meetings, he is a delegation of one (another travel cost for the media to rip into! Why should even one be going?) while his European counterparts have up to three research assistants providing support.

As much as I welcome the return of the Parliamentary Internship Programme, it is nothing but a drop in the bucket. When the programme first ran between 2006 and 2012, it engaged only seven interns who produced 40 pieces of research or around eight pieces per year, on average. There were then 60 parliamentarians. Nice sample! But not really serious input, numerically.

Improved governance will need improved processes and improved support, and any little movement in this direction must be supported.

Martin Henry is a university administrator and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.