This island???s Minister of Finance, Christopher Sinckler, is not joining the list of persons lambasting the public service for its level of productivity and the impact of bureaucracy on competitiveness in Barbados.
Rather, Mr. Sinckler believes that all Barbadians must take responsibility for the system and work towards improving it.
He made the comments today while delivering an address at the Week of Excellence workshop at the Grande Salle, Central Bank of Barbados.
He told his audience: ???There are many offices in Barbados in the public service to which you can go that you can find spellbinding efficiency in the way things are done, and there are other offices that you can go to in which you will find the complete opposite.
???I daresay that there are private sector offices in Barbados that you can go to where you will find spellbinding efficiencies. But I know that there are also some in which the level of bureaucracy, delay, malaise and otherwise is truly spellbinding.???
Acknowledging that there were challenges in the system, the Minister said oftentimes, his experience had been that people who complained most about the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy, were the ones who created the biggest problems that caused it not to function effectively.
According to him, the superiority of the public service had distinguished Barbados as different in the last 50 years.??He continued: ???Yes, like most other things around us there have been slippages, but I say, without fear of contradiction, that one of the things that distinguishes Barbados from many other countries in this region and the world is the superiority of our public service, and that is simply a fact.
???So, even as we recognise we have challenges and we develop systems to improve efficiencies??? We should not consume this ???kool-aid??? that suggests that our system is so badly broken that it is destroying the country. That, in my view, with all due respect, is simply not true. And we have a responsibility, all of us, to see where the blockages are and to address those.???
Mr. Sinckler suggested that those who worked in the public system and who engaged it from the outside, needed to accept ownership of its successes and failures.
???And until and unless we do it, we will continue with this blame game. We can do much better than we have done in the last 50 years and do much better going forward,??? he contended.
sharon.austingill-moore@barbados.gov.bb