Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt coined the phrase “bul­ly pul­pit” by which he meant a con­spic­u­ous plat­form from which to speak out and at­tract at­ten­tion when ad­vo­cat­ing an agen­da. The post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence is a pow­er­ful plat­form to com­mu­ni­cate is­sues deemed im­por­tant to the na­tion at large. When a Prime min­is­ter takes the podi­um, one pre­sumes that the mes­sage is im­por­tant, well-craft­ed and ad­dress­es the is­sues.

Last Thurs­day, the Prime Min­is­ter breathed fire and brim­stone, a prover­bial drag­on, as he railed against un­named pub­lic ser­vants, the Pub­lic Ser­vices Com­mis­sion and the Ju­di­cial Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion. A tri­fec­ta of events ap­peared to have prompt­ed his out­burst. First, there was a pub­lic ser­vant sta­tioned at the Reg­is­trar’s Of­fice in To­ba­go who de­fied the chain of com­mand caus­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive chaos. Sec­ond was the $55 mil­lion in rent paid for a build­ing to house the DPP that re­mained un­oc­cu­pied for three years. Third was the frus­tra­tion that the fi­nance min­is­ter’s promise to pay pub­lic ser­vants back pay be­fore Christ­mas may not hap­pen. The pub­lic is an­noyed.

This is not the first time that an ad­min­is­tra­tion has rent­ed a build­ing that re­mained un­oc­cu­pied for years. One re­calls a sim­i­lar is­sue with the rental of 1 Alexan­dra Street which be­came a reg­u­lar taunt in Par­lia­ment. Fur­ther­more, Cab­i­net ap­proval would have been re­quired for the trans­ac­tion. Where was the fol­low-up? Who dropped the ball? Are there any con­se­quences? Has dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion been tak­en? Does this “mis­take” demon­strate the dys­func­tion­al­i­ty of the Cab­i­net’s ad­min­is­tra­tive process? Since the Cab­i­net is the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, what pro­ce­dur­al changes have been made to pre­vent the re­cur­rence of this type of er­ror? These are the ques­tions that the Prime Min­is­ter ought to have ad­dressed but skill­ful­ly avoid­ed in his di­a­tribe.

This is not the first time that the ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es sup­port­ing Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing seem to have failed. One re­calls the mys­te­ri­ous award of the largest gov­ern­ment hous­ing con­tract on very gen­er­ous terms and con­di­tions to the Chi­nese con­trac­tor CG­GC, a con­trac­tor who was new to the mar­ket. As Act­ing Min­is­ter of Hous­ing when the award was made, the Prime Min­is­ter ap­peared blind­sided even though the con­tract would have re­quired Cab­i­net ap­proval in­clud­ing the terms and con­di­tions on which the con­tract was award­ed. In­deed, sev­er­al Cab­i­net min­is­ters were at the sign­ing event.

One is re­mind­ed of an in­ter­view giv­en by the Prime Min­is­ter ear­ly in his term of of­fice with the po­lit­i­cal cor­re­spon­dent of an­oth­er news­pa­per dur­ing which he iden­ti­fied the im­por­tance of re­form­ing the pub­lic ser­vice. Yet there has been no ma­jor ini­tia­tive to ad­dress the per­for­mance of the pub­lic ser­vice in his eight years as prime min­is­ter. Sure­ly the fi­nance min­is­ter would have dis­cussed the me­chan­ics of pay­ing back pay be­fore Christ­mas be­fore he made his promise?

Was the Prime Min­is­ter’s right­eous in­dig­na­tion a cyn­i­cal tac­tic to redi­rect pub­lic ir­ri­ta­tion away from the prospect of in­creased elec­tric­i­ty tar­iffs and a poor­ly per­form­ing WASA to the weak­ness­es of an in­ef­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vice? The pol­i­tics of dis­trac­tion? This tech­nique was suc­cess­ful­ly in­voked to con­vert a scep­ti­cal pub­lic in­to sup­port­ing the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery

Gov­ern­ments are elect­ed to man­age, make a dif­fer­ence, change and im­prove the way things are done. A pub­lic rant, a dis­trac­tion, is not what the elec­torate ex­pects, wants, or de­serves. Where is the ev­i­dence of the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to process im­prove­ment?