Latest update May 13th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 20, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
There is actually a simple solution to the controversy over the salary increases paid to Ministers of the government. If this solution is applied it would prevent all the problems that the government now faces.
If the salary increases arose out of the need to ensure a differential between junior Ministers and senior Ministers, and between Ministers and Vice Presidents, then the solution is simple. All that needs to be done is for the positions of junior Ministers to be abolished and for the positions of Vice President to be abolished.
If this is done then there will be no need to have an increase the salaries of Ministers. All those who are aggrieved by the increases would have no cause any more to protest.
Why do we need a Junior Minister? What do these junior Ministers do that cannot be done by the Senior Ministers assisted by the technical personnel of the Ministry. Why do we need two Ministers in the Ministry of Social Protection? Why do we need two Ministers in the Ministry of Health? Why do we need a junior Minister in the Ministry of Finance who task is simply to oversee the forensic audits? Simply appoint an Audit Director to undertake this task. You do not a need a Minister for that task.
Why do you need a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration? Appoint a Director of Citizenship and Immigration and have that person work under the Minister of Public Security? Why do we need a Minister of State in the Office of the President? What is needed is a Chief of Staff. Why is there is a need for junior Ministers in the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Communities. Totally unnecessary!
There is equally no need for Vice Presidents. As far as can be seen, these Ministers are not exercising any superior powers to anyone else in the Cabinet. Supreme Executive remains in the hands of the President.
The abolition of these positions is not going to make any difference to the status of the Cummingsburg Agreement. As far as can be determined that agreement is already null and void; it is useless of parchment which cannot be redeemed.
What is needed is smaller government. The government is becoming too large. This will swell the bureaucracy and create the same problems that led to thousands of Guyanese being placed on the breadlines as they were in the 1980’s when there was mass retrenchment with the shrinking of the State sector.
Yesterday the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority placed an advertisement in the newspapers inviting applications for a number of positions. Are all these positions needed for what is essentially a regulatory body?
The government should be shrinking rather than expanding because the more it expands the harder it will be for persons to be paid better because expansion will swell the wage bill and make it impossible to pay sustainable wages increases.
The economy cannot support a bloated bureaucracy. Already, we are being told that the economy did not grow in the first half of the year. Well if did not grow in the first half of the year, then growth in the second half will be reduced.
The stimulus that the private sector asked for did not materialize. There was a large Budget which came much too late for all the monies voted to be spent. It means critical sectors such as construction will stagnate.
Rice will do wonders for the growth of the economy but the industry has underlying problems that will ensure that the benefits of increased production in rice will not boost other sectors of the economy such as the commercial sector. The government is hoping on gold to bring growth by December. They may be lucky but the other problems in the economy will see continuing cautiousness on the part of investors concerned about anti-investor sentiments.
Investors are cautious because they are afraid that their perceived affiliation with the previous administration will lead to recrimination. There needs to be some sort of assurances to the private sector that this will not happen.
There is no growth strategy. Without such a strategy the existing growth in the economy cannot be sustained beyond. As such, an expanding bureaucracy would not be able to be sustained by the economy.
Listen how to run an oil country
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