Accurate, timely financial and economic data are crucial for informing policy decisions in all organisations, public or private sector. Reliable data is required to ensure that decision-makers can determine the critical problems, where they originate and what must be “fixed”, especially during a crisis. Without reliable data, policy-makers cannot assess how badly the economy has performed, nor can they properly monitor the recovery. Sean O'Brien, the head statistician at the Central Statistical Office (CSO) noted in December 2019 that CSO data was late because of a lack of coordination amongst government departments.
The report of the committee of 22 entitled “The Final first report of Roadmap committee”, believed to be a draft of the first report, reflects this difficulty. Section 1.1 (An Economy on the Road to Recovery) implicitly blames the economy’s weak performance on COVID-19. It recounts the projected growth rates for 2019-2022 and concludes “The historical strength of these economic indicators has provided an important anchor for Trinidad and Tobago to respond in the crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.” Really?
2019 and 2020 are expected to show an economic decline (2020, -4.5 per cent). And 2021 and 2022 economic performance are yet to happen. The energy sector’s weaknesses predate COVID-19. The Central Bank in its last economic bulletin emphasised that its index of energy export prices had decreased by 19 per cent. COVID-19 has simply made things much worse.
The private sector surveys have noted that most businesses had taken defensive actions by cutting salaries or reducing the number of permanent and part-time staff, decisions that may be reversed depending on how things roll out. The adoption of social distancing measures will have a continuing negative impact on all service industries.
Section 3 of the draft identifies four objectives to inform the policy response to the economic and social impact on citizens. First, to protect the poor and the vulnerable; second, to retain and create jobs; third, to boost aggregate demand; fourth, to minimise and reduce supply disruptions. No one can seriously disagree with these objectives. However, the devil is in the details.
The measures listed under each heading are elaborate and require systemic and procedural changes and a whole of government approach. The general point to be made is that there are many recommendations. The measures do not distinguish between the immediate (decisions already taken), those to be implemented in the next three months (the short term) and medium-term. Moreover, many of the measures are not new and have been the public domain for some considerable time. So why will they be implemented now? What of Visions 2020 or 2030?
For example, it is recommended that “Family Services should be re-engineered through the introduction of a coordinated mechanism supported by a Data Management System and one-stop mechanism” as part of the effort to help the poor and the vulnerable. Anyone familiar with system transformation exercises will know that this objective cannot be achieved in less than 24 months as the system must be designed, metrics identified, a procurement and evaluation methodology devised, budgets prioritised and personnel deployed. This is only one of 14 other recommendations.
Similarly, at Section 4.3 the committee advocates a “series of cogent, practical and compelling actions in the areas of Ease of Doing Business, Building Institutional Capacity, Critical Supporting Infrastructure and National Value System.” As T&T has declined in the ease of doing business indices, calls for such change have been continuous. The only evidence that this recommendation has been addressed is the existence of TT Biz Link which was started in 2010. An IDB loan to facilitate its improvement was signed in 2016. Yet in 2020 improvements to the system are yet to be deployed.
As John Kotter points out, leadership and management are distinctive but complementary systems of action. Both are necessary if any organisation (or country) is to operate successfully in the 21st century. Simply put, management is about developing systems to deal with complexity and government is a large complex organisation. It is the proverbial battleship which turns very slowly. Leadership is about managing change, particularly when that change is rapid.
Since leadership is required either to produce or direct change, then setting the direction of that change is fundamental to the task of leadership. Leaders set the timing, tone and tempo of an organisation, especially in a crisis.
Volatility and external shocks are inherent characteristics of an energy economy and T&T has been in a crisis since 2014 when energy prices declined. T&T has always had the means and capacity to deal with its problems. What has always been lacking is political will. Politicians always promise to make things different. The inability to reform of WASA or modernise the public service are evidence of that failure of will.