RECENT REVELATIONS CONCERNING the speed and ease of doing business in Barbados have assumed an urgent importance given the government’s need to get the economy growing in order to enable it better to meet the social and other needs of our young country.
Deeply disturbing accounts of lethargy in some Government departments have to be tackled at the Government to get the economy firing on all cylinders is to stand any chance of success.
From time to time, we hear about red tape in the bureaucracy holding up projects which if they were completed would benefit the treasury and provide jobs for the growing ranks of people leaving educational institutions eager to use their skills and to improve their social and financial status. But the recent disclosures still shock!
What justification could there have been for a waiting period of ten years to get permission for the Apes Hill golf tourism project spearheaded by local developer Sir Charles Williams? This charge was recently made and none of the regulatory agencies has refuted the claim. Nor has anyone denied that the project brought in US$200million and provides employment for about 300 persons.
No matter how well laid may be the policies and plans of any Minister of Finance and his advisers, the economy will not benefit if technocrats in other parts of the regulatory agencies are slow or delinquent in processing information and applications in a timely and efficient manner. This country simply cannot tolerate a situation in which investors get fed up with frustrating delays and locate their investments elsewhere when we were their first choice.
Neither must we fool ourselves that these problems are located only in the public service. The problem is wider and deeper than that. The International Business Association has been a long time advocate for improving the way in which business is done; and it has roundly condemned shortcomings in both the private and public sectors.
Its executive director, Mr Henderson Holmes remarked at the opening of International Business Week that “we have to do some work in the private sector since some of those (private sector) services are not up to the standards that they should be”. This situation cannot continue. The logjam must be broken!
In the public service, it sometimes takes the authority of the Prime Minister to cut through the red tape by summoning the relevant agencies together. This seems to have been done by Prime Minister Owen Arthur in the Port St Charles project after a three-year gestation period; and shows that reform of the public service has a long way to go. But who is there to perform a similar role in the private corridors of corporate Barbados?
Put bluntly, there has to be something of a crusade aimed at galvanizing a culture of efficiency and ease of doing business at all levels of this society. We can hardly become a successful service economy if we do not give efficient service.
Repeated calls for better standards by Industry Minister Donville Inniss are laudable, but his efforts will count for nothing if action does not follow by those public and private sector personnel to whom his urgings are directed.
When we consider that the start of any one of the much touted construction projects will generate growth in our economy, then it must be clear that the growth, social stability and success of this country depends on each one us getting the job done efficiently.
