I LISTENED TO PART of the Economic Forum hosted by the Central Bank recently, and although former governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, Dr Patrick Honohan, seemed careful not to offer specific solutions to our problems (he had said previously we need to find our own solutions), he did give some of the experiences of Ireland, a country which seems to have all but come out of the recession.
In 2015 when I visited Ireland, there were certainly no obvious signs of a recession.
The Global Retail Banker reports that in the past decade, Ireland has suffered through major cuts and spending restrictions, but the aftermath sees a wiser and prosperous economy emerging to become one of the strongest in the European Union.
Do we dare hope for a similar outcome sometime in the future, albeit distant?
The points from the forum that stand out in my mind are: (1) You must act early (no longer relevant for us); (2) You can’t mark time in this environment; (3) Leaders need to be nimble and quick; (4) Authorities must communicate clearly and not hide behind a screen of verbiage (sounds familiar?), and (5) The private sector will respond positively to stability, predictability and an “embracing” (my word) environment.
In its attempt to deal with the 2007 crisis, Ireland introduced an unprecedented number of public service reforms with various oversight structures to set targets and priorities and overcome internal barriers to reform and monitor progress.
For every sector in government there was a senior officer responsible for ensuring implementation of its particular reform projects. A new public procurement regime was established, state agencies reduced and performance budgeting introduced. That level of oversight had been missing from pre-crisis reform (MacCarthigh Queen’s University Belfast).
Perhaps that’s what we need here. Of course, selection of the members of these oversight bodies would be important lest we “put mongoose to guard chicken coop”.
Unfortunately, in our situation where party is paramount and elections are around the corner, it’s doubtful whether any decisions critical for the country but unpopular with the electorate will be made anytime soon. We’ll probably just “mark time” and spend what we don’t have on election “incentives”.
But apart from problems with government policy, we suffer from “people” problems which present major barriers to progress.
I met Dr Eddie Molloy, Barbados’ consul in Ireland, while he was on assignment here many years ago and had earlier met his Barbadian wife, Doriel, while studying at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.
While searching for the reference to his statement that “implementation deficit disorder” was endemic in our local institutions, I came across his interesting and useful presentation entitled No Reform Without Cultural Reform, made at a social workers’ conference in Ireland. Although he was referring to reform in the Mental Health Service, his points are relevant to our general situation here in Barbados.
He likened organisations to icebergs, with technical challenges to change being visible, that is, at the tip of the iceberg, while cultural challenges were invisible and more significant (like the wider submerged base of the iceberg).
By culture, he didn’t mean wuk-up and bashment, but values, beliefs, attitudes, identity, prejudices and mindset. You can introduce all the technological, structural and policy changes you like, but if you’re still faced with the same negative attitudes and mindsets, you will fail.
I think Barbados has major attitude and work ethic problems. While of course we can’t paint everyone with the same brush (I know some really committed and efficient youngsters), our work ethic in general has deteriorated seriously over time, with encouragement from governments and unions.
As Dr Molloy says, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. So we have to make sure that both are on the same wavelength – otherwise we can bid productivity and progress goodbye.
He went on to say that while discussion of technical challenges seems to be acceptable, and changes tend to happen fairly quickly, cultural issues are usually considered “taboo” and therefore change in this area is much slower.
So, if we are to rise again, we have to relearn positive attitudes, and this has to start from the cradle – which means parents have to be involved, the church and the school have to be involved, and community life has to be resurrected. Productivity has to be rewarded and callousness and indifference penalised.
• Dr Frances Chandler is a former Independent senator. Email: [email protected]
