PUBLIC SERVICE COLLAPSING

PEOPLE have not been able to get electronic birth certificates for the past few weeks because of a shortage of appropriate polymer paper.

The Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs has been telling applicants that there is a breakdown of relevant machines.

But red tape in accessing funds and placing orders for the paper has shut down the system, affecting many people, including those who are doing business with banks and embassies.

This is just one example of the worsening collapse of the public service.

Bureaucracy in accessing funds from the Finance Ministry is impacting several key areas of customer operations, including the Licensing Department.

There are also several critical vacancies caused by the Government’s decision two years ago to hold its hands on employment in the public service.

The staff shortage is upsetting operations throughout the system.

In March, Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard said there was an “acute and chronic” shortage of State prosecutors and “if the situation continues, the criminal justice system will collapse.”

Gaspard said that “the number of courts outnumber prosecutors.”

The snail’s pace digitisation of the system is also crippling operations, with many crowded offices burdened with large ledgers, some termite-eaten.

Virtually every ministry is affected, senior public officers have revealed.

A top-ranked public servant admitted: “In some areas, we are as bad as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

“At some ministries and departments, things are much more efficient because of the use of modern technology.

“But overall, we are not in a modern state.”

Another factor affecting output is the Government’s insistence on a four per cent salary increase for public sector workers, in spite of huge hikes in the costs of food, transportation, pharmaceuticals, and housing.

Public Services Association President Leroy Baptiste has stressed that “no one” wants to accept the wage offer.

Baptiste has branded the proposal as “unfair, unjust and downright wicked to the working class.”

The overall poor condition of the public service is also a factor in the refusal of multinational corporations to invest in Trinidad and Tobago.

T&T is placed low in the World Bank’s Ease-of-Doing Business ratings, which are the benchmarks on the time it takes to access relevant public sector services.

In his 2021, Budget presentation, Finance Minister Colm Imbert admitted it takes 254 days to receive construction permits, 77 days to register a property, and 61 days to get electricity connections.

Thackwray “Dax” Driver, CEO of the Energy Chamber, recently said the approval process for public projects is not designed for speed.

“We seem to have different ministries and different agencies pulling in different directions,” Driver said.

“I am seeing the same with vital fiscal reform process,” he added.

He stated that to get approval for a natural gas exploration project, 39 major approvals were required from eight ministries or statutory agencies.

He said: “Most of the decisions have to be taken using paper files and relying on physical signatures of the decision-makers.

“We have heard of cases where important decisions cannot be taken because a hardcopy file has gone missing.”

Driver observed that fixing the problem “needs detailed, busy work and a commitment to streamline and ruthlessly cut out processes and decisions that do not add value to the overall approval process.”

Ironically, Trinidad and Tobago has a Minister of Digital Transformation, whose name is Hassel Bacchus.

There is also a Minister of Public Administration, Allison West.