WHENEVER DISASTER threatens, or anything untoward happens which might affect the availability of public transportation or public attendance at certain functions, some private sector companies and organisations immediately let the public and their staff know how their operations will be affected for the next few days. Usually an advisory is published to the effect that a specific company will be closed and re-opening and work schedules provided both for staff and the public.
Unfortunately, in the case of some important public sector organisations and services, there is never a word of enlightenment for the public. Take the island's courts of law, for example. When hurricanes threatened recently, the public was left in the dark as to whether the courts would be in session on particular days. So scores of people lawyers, jurors, litigants, police, defendants, complainants and their relatives and friends, were left in a quandary should they go to court or not?
And there were scores of other government offices whose users were equally at sea. There must be hundreds of people who have to travel long distances each day, and at great expense, to avail themselves of the services offered by these public offices.
The fact is, despite a plethora of consultants and functionaries at its disposal, the Government has not been doing as effective a job it might in conveying important information to the public. Every effort should be made to develop a clear policy on public announcements regarding the closure and re-opening of public offices and availability of services in the face of impending disruptions.
It seems that what is needed is a chief coordinator who would advise the public about the closure and re-opening of government offices in the face of storm warnings or other situations which might threaten.
The Ministry of Information may be the appropriate government agency to perform this function. The immediate post-hurricane period, in which already there are so many queries from many who suffered and are in need of material help, is as good a time as any to address this lack of information.
We think that even in normal times much of public complaints spring from lack of knowledge about which office or agency is the appropriate point of contact; and when they are available for public access.
This could be a further phase of the transparency so fervently professed by no less than the Prime Minister himself. Routine dissemination of how the Government works at the most basic level would obviate much of the strenuous and argumentative encounters he has had to endure in the wake of Ivan's destructive path in rural Jamaica.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
