UNITED States President Barack Obama effectively uses technology to communicate with Americans every step of the way.

Here in Jamaica, Prime Minister Bruce Golding hosts a radio show on the last Wednesday of each month called Jamaica House Live. But given the worsening global financial crisis, the Sunday Observer will give Jamaicans a chance each week to ask pertinent questions of various leaders. This week it’s Ryland Campbell’s turn in the hot seat.

Gregory Dunbar, Accountant

What is Capital and Credit’s role in improving investment in core businesses such as in the productive sector, rather than perpetuating this cycle of investing only in government papers?Errol McKenzie, businessman

Why is it so difficult for a small business like mine – a stationery company – to get in touch with your purchasing officer to set up a business relationship?

Rochelle Duncan, Financial Transaction Processor

At what stage in an individual’s life should he or she start investing in stocks and bonds?

Joeline Scott, Financial Transaction Processor

As a ‘financial wizard’, what is it that you do to mentor young people who are interested in getting into the financial field or in becoming financially stable?

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Albert Smith, Manager

What are the financial opportunities available to young people in the current economic environment?

Orane Responds

Sunday Observer writer Erica Virtue sought and got a response from Douglas Orane, chairman and CEO of GraceKennedy Limited, to Petergaye Richards’ Question of the Week two Sundays ago: What solution would you recommend, other than cutting jobs, to ease the wage bill in the public sector?

Hi Petergaye,

Thank you for your question. I have to ask you to forgive me for giving what might seem like a long answer to a short question.

However, the truth is that the current situation with the public sector wage bill is only a part of the wider economic challenge that faces our country today, and Jamaicans should not be under any illusion that our government will be able to balance the budget simply by cutting jobs in the public sector.

For well over a decade, the slowdown in economic activity in Jamaica, as well as negative to marginal growth as measured by real Gross Domestic Product, has signalled the need for the government to take urgent measures to not only earn more money, but also to save money by administering the business of the country in a more efficient manner.

There is a much bigger issue which lies at the heart of the solution to your question.

We as citizens need to make a paradigm shift in the way we see our government. We have tended to look at the government as a paternal figure on which we depend for favours. Going forward we need to see our government as a supplier of goods and services to us as taxpayers and citizens – giving us good value for the taxes that we pay.

By doing this, we will cause the government to view us as customers to be treated respectfully as any good business would treat its customers. What this will lead to, is increasing productivity in the government and consequently reducing waste.

In 1999 I chaired a government-commissioned task force of persons drawn from both the public and private sector. The other members were Betty Ann Jones-Kerr, Carol Royes, Garth Kiddoe, and Devon Rowe. Our terms of reference included exploring and making recommendations on how the government could realise savings in the central civil service. The study and our subsequent recommendations, which came to be known as the Orane Report, can be viewed on GraceKennedy’s website at www.gracekennedy.com, under the heading ‘media’.

We made several recommendations which, if implemented at the time, would have saved the government approximately $2 billion a year. However, only some of these recommendations were implemented, and based on subsequent reports by the government, the savings realised were only $200 million yearly or about 10 per cent.

What can we as citizens do about making the government work better for us? Here are some suggestions which I have taken from the Orane Report. You and I, as citizens, can easily benchmark the provision of services by the government against best practices in other countries which we know of through the experience of our brothers and sisters abroad, through travel, or on the Internet.

Police response to emergency phone calls in a small city in the USA – 5 mins

Transfer of real estate title in Florida – 24 hours

Licensing a car in Massachusetts – 10 mins

Delivery of local mail from time of posting within the UK – 48 hours

Patients seen at casualty in Wales – 5 minutes

Ask yourself the question. How long does it take for comparable activities to take place with our government as service providers to us as customers/taxpayers? If we are not getting the service that we are paying for, then we must demand it and hold them accountable. By us as citizens doing this, it will encourage a new culture of accountability within the government. Let me share one specific example which illustrates why it is so important for us to do so.

In the Orane Report we gave one example of the level of waste within the government because of the ratio between central overheads and the cost of delivered benefits. In one outrageous example disclosed, it cost a ministry $3.6 million in administrative overheads to disburse $900,000 worth of benefits to the poor. Only twenty per cent of the cost reached the beneficiaries!

I am suggesting some other things that we can do to encourage accountability leading to greater effectiveness and efficiencies:

1. Talk to your Member of Parliament

I assume, of course, that you are a registered voter. I have found from personal experience that every MP is willing to listen very carefully to the concerns of any citizen registered on the voters’ list in his/her constituency. What I have found is that many people have not bothered to register to vote and do not know who their MP is. This is a right we have as citizens and we need to exercise our rights or we will lose them.

2. Rate the performance of public entities

Insist that the government make public the performance rating of publicly owned entities. For example, the comparative performance ratings of schools, the relative performance indicators for hospitals such as recovery rates of their patients as a percentage of the total intake, and the relative crime statistics for each police station.

3. Institute annual general meetings for the public

In a similar way that for publicly traded companies the directors are required to account annually to the shareholders and answer questions at an Annual General Meeting, there should be the equivalent of an AGM for each public sector entity, which is open to the public and provides for dialogue between citizens/taxpayers and that entity.

If we as citizens insist that these things are done it will a new era of accountability. This culture of accountability needs to start at the top of the government. The tone at the top is critical to making these events unfold in the way that we would like.

By doing so we will have a vastly more effective public sector which delivers the services that we want as customers/taxpayers and, ironically, this is the only source of security in the long run for jobs in the public sector.