PRIME MINISTER of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning, is blaming public-sector bureaucracy for keeping back the ruling PNM's development programme for T&T.
Citing an example, Mr. Manning said the (J$2 billion) programme to build new schools and upgrade existing ones that was approved by the Cabinet 20 months ago is barely getting off the ground.
Manning was delivering the main address at Chaguanas Junior Secondary School when the PNM reported to supporters on the Government's performance last week.
He said development was ongoing, despite the claim of the Opposition UNC that the PNM was doing nothing for T&T.
PUBLIC SECTOR PROBLEMS
Manning said T&T was not the first to face problems in the public sector, and other countries got around this by creating executing agencies outside the public service.
"The Government has decided to proceed along the lines of the special-purpose state enterprise, that is to say, you set up a state enterprise with appropriate guidelines and with appropriate systems of accountability."
These special state enterprises were to be given responsibility for procurement and tendering procedures so the job could get done much faster, said Manning.
On Friday, Manning along with Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis and Public Administration Minister Dr Lenny Saith, met at Whitehall with the heads of 13 state enterprises.
SOLUTIONS
Without identifying them, Manning said seven problems and possible solutions were discussed and were to be examined within a month, before recommendations go before Cabinet.
The PM said the budget for this year's development programme was hiked up from TT$2.2 billion to TT$3 billion after six months, but he anticipated that expenditure would not cross the original sum.
Naming a few of the new state companies, Manning zeroed in on the Rural Development Corporation, and sought to dispel views that its aim was racially based.
"Rural T&T has an ethnic connotation that the bulk of our citizens of East Indian descent don't live in urban T&T, they live in rural T&T, and, therefore those opposed to us didn't see things in terms of urban and rural.
"They see things in terms of race, so ... what the Government is doing is to set up the Rural Development Corporation of T&T, dedicated exclusively to the development of all rural communities."
- Trinidad Guardian
