The recent Auditor General Department’s (AG) report on the Government’s spending programme after Hurricane Melissa should concern all well-thinking Jamaicans.

The AG lamented that of the $1.44 billion of total cash donations from various donors, only 26 million had been spent. Yet emergency relief to affected households and temporary assistance to affected families languished, not to mention the distress caused to hurricane victims. She highlighted weak internal controls, poor planning on the part of Office Of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), and unacceptable delays in getting help to people as major contributors to this.

Government senator and parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Marlon Morgan, ostensibly speaking on behalf of the Government, pointed to the $11.3 billion that are being spent in the recovery effort. He defended the Government’s active rebuilding programme even if ODPEM had not disbursed the funds, pointing out that the Government has not been embroiled in any scandals or damning report on monies being spent. He concludes that the Government has been responsive and accountable.

But Morgan has missed the point. He cannot conflate donated funds for the immediate relief of suffering in the aftermath of the hurricane with the larger-scale and more long-term response of the Government. Donors in Jamaica and the Diaspora made contributions to this effort because they saw the devastation and the urgent need that people faced after the hurricane. It is this immediate need that ODPEM should have responded to. To seek some moral equivalence between this need to get help to people and the Government’s larger effort smacks of the disingenuous, even if the Government’s response to date has not met with any negative reporting. The fact is that donor funds to the effort were not deployed as robustly as they should have been. One can be sure that this has cast grave doubt on any response of people to future tragedies that are bound to occur.

There can be no rationalising the fact that aid was not deployed to people with greater alacrity. Neither is it helpful to skirt around the auditor general’s report as Morgan appears to be doing. It might have been more acceptable if blame was placed on the systemic inefficiencies which bedevil government agencies such as ODPEM, National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), and even the National Works Agency (NWA). Neither can we ignore the bureaucratic impediments that bedevil agencies such as these. While we must not take the bureaucracy for granted, and while it continues to be a real and present danger to productivity and the well-being of society, we must avoid the trap of not making it a scapegoat for the inefficiency and lack of progress that we find in too many government departments. It is very easy to point to a moribund bureaucracy as the source of all our discontents. There are other dangers lurking below of which we need to be cognisant.

One of these that I have consistently written about in this space is the lethargy with which we approach our tasks and the lack of urgency and ownership which we assign to our work for which we are paid, and in some instances, handsomely. There is also the grinding and abominable disregard we have in treating with fellow Jamaicans in their hour of need. We hardly pay attention to the fact that the Jamaican people or, more narrowly, the Jamaican taxpayer is the ultimate employer of every worker in the public service.

Another problem is the absence of the capacity to get the work done. This is part of the problem identified by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) in its most recent research on educational outcomes in Jamaica. The organisation has opined that we spend money like a First World country but get abysmal outcomes. There are structural and systemic inefficiencies that have to be overcome, and these are problems that run the full gamut of the society, from the private to the public sector. It might be less so in the private sector, but lack of concern for the customer is a big hindrance there as well. It is a cultural problem that we have nurtured over the years.

There are a few exceptions that give one hope, such as the National Land Agency (NLA) and allied services. The branch in Mandeville is a case in point. It is a pleasure to visit that office. Yes, you see leather chairs for customers to sit on, but more importantly, you see courtesy and efficiency on the part of the officers there. You feel welcome because there is genuine respect for the customer. You do not see people on their phones disregarding the customer standing before them while they finish their calls as you see in some places. That office is a model, a template to be emulated throughout the civil service.

It is this structural and systemic inefficiency that will bedevil National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), even though the legislation that brought it into being was designed to avoid this boondoggle. These structural inefficiencies in government have been well interwoven into the productive systems of the country and they stymie progress. They will not disappear overnight and this is the scourge that bodies like NaRRA will have to circumnavigate.

Back in the day, about 30 years ago, a senior member of the People’s National Party (PNP) expressed to me his disenchantment with the poor work that is done by many of our contractors. He said if he had his way, he would bring in outside contractors to get the work done, but of course, as a politician, he understood the hue and cry that would result.

You do not have to go further than road construction and maintenance to get a firm grasp of this scourge. Hurricanes Beryl and Melissa have revealed the poor and shoddy work that attend road construction and repair in Jamaica. In St Elizabeth, from Treasure Beach to Westmoreland, and St James, you see the detritus of poor road construction for which I am sure contractors were well paid. From the roads that were dug up by the hurricanes, it would seem that there is not one bit along this corridor that has two inches of asphalt. The thin film of asphalt that you see mirrors the larger problem of neglected road maintenance. Instead of doing routine maintenance, we wait until an emergency or a crisis develops then we attack the problem with Band-Aid solutions which result in the shoddy work we see and accept. It also suggests a lack of serious supervision of work done.

I would want to give the Ministry of Works and Minister Robert Morgan the benefit of the doubt, but I frankly do not hold out much optimism that under the much-ballyhooed Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme this mindset, which has been entrenched over the years, will change anytime soon. If there is not stern oversight and supervision with contractors knowing that they will be held accountable and not paid for shoddy work, nothing will change.

It is the absence of accountability that causes these problems to persist. Officers of the ministry must do their work. The devil, of course, that decadent, partisan political culture, is on the prowl seeking those it can devour. For SPARK to light up, it will take more than a nice-sounding acronym to get the job done. Similar sentiments apply to NaRRA.

Keep up the good work, AGD.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; Your Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. He also hosts a podcast — Mango Tree Dialogues— on his YouTube channel. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.

A significant portion of the funds donated to the Government for Hurricane Melissa relief has not been spent.l

Inefficiency at government agencies is a costly source of frustration for citizens.l

A significant number of Hurricane Melissa victims are still in need of assistance.