Implementation has been the historical bane of the PNC
Oct 08, 2017 , https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...cal-bane-of-the-pnc/
The Minister of Finance has identified a human capacity problem within the government which it is implied is contributing to the APNU+AFC government’s poor project implementation rate. But who is responsible for this state of affairs?
A number of excuses are being made that this problem is historical in nature. It is said, for example, that the PPPC when it first came into office, disbanded a number of agencies, such as the State Planning Secretariat and another agency which was responsible for mobilizing international finance for projects, the Department of International Economic Cooperation.
The State Planning Secretariat was an ideological creature. It was created as part of the central planning under Guyana’s socialist experiment and after the failed development plan of 1976.
Burnham created State Planning Secretariat, not as implementation unit, but as a planning unit. It was one of the biggest administrative failures in this country. It was a bureaucratic albatross. It was therefore no surprise when the PPP downsized it significantly when it assumed office in 1992. The PPPC outlawed State Planning but retained a smaller unit within the Ministry of Finance.
It was this smaller unit that the PPPC used to great effect to implement its capital projects, surpassing the implementation rate of the PNC governments which had a much larger bureaucracy at its disposal. APNU and the AFC decapitated the State Planning Secretariat following the 2012 Budget claiming that it was illegal.
Anyone familiar with the Department for International Economic Cooperation (DIEC) would appreciate that this department was cobbled together by the Hoyte administration at a time when Guyana was deemed ineligible for financing. It was only the IDB which was lending to Guyana and it is now public knowledge about the fiasco of some of the IDB projects during the pre-Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) days.
The DIEC was concerned with mobilizing international capital. The verdict is divided as to the extent to which it achieved its aims, given the relatively high cost of running that agency.
Guyana entered into a structural adjustment programme in 1989 which it branded as the ERP. International capital began to flow in Guyana through the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, with balance of payments support coming from the International Monetary Fund.
The PNC even under the ERP whose capital programme was far smaller than what obtained under the PPPC, was unable to have an implementation rate of its PSIP higher than 70%.
The PPPC, on the other hand, took a smaller State Planning Secretariat, and easily surpassed the implementation rate of the PNC even though the PPPC’s capital programme was far higher than what obtained under the PNC.
The failure for the present crisis in project implementation cannot be laid at the feet of the PPP and especially in relation to its actions in relation to the DIEC or the State Planning Secretariat. The PNC must accept that the problem is not with the PPPC but with itself.
The PNC has had a historical problem with project implementation. It must question why this is so. It must ask itself whether its actions in purging the system of skilled personnel; in reshuffling key personnel and in stacking the bureaucracy with political hacks, have not contributed to its present predicament.
How is it that despite all that is being claimed was done by the PPPC to institutions such as the State Planning Secretariat and the Department of International Economic Cooperation, the PPPC under Jagdeo still was able to have one of the most impressive rates of implementation of the public sector investment projects not just in Guyana but in the Caribbean? What is preventing the APNU +AFC coalition from doing the same?
The APNU must look at itself. It must ask itself whether its actions in office had denuded the public bureaucracy of critical personnel which had been responsible for the superior PPPC’s implementation rate. How could the PPPC, which it is said was corrupt and incompetent, done so much better than the APNU+AFC is doing now?
If human capacity is the problem then how come it did not cripple the PPPC implementation of projects under the PSIP? The implementation rate of the PSIP of the PPPC was, by its own standards, poor in 2015.
But that was an unusual year of political crisis. It should not be used as a baseline of a declining project implementation.
The PPPC’s PSIP was far more diverse and complex than what APNU is attempting now. The PPPC was going after mega projects while APNU is struggling with repairing schools, building roads and repairing buildings.
Perhaps, instead of creating delivery units which will end up being headed by political incompetents, the IDB should be asking why it is that the PPPC could have done much better without delivery units.