The Government is instituting a system to measure its performance in office so the public can ascertain if it has met its promises or not, Planning Minister Bhoe Tewarie said yesterday. He announced a National Performance Framework to assess performance at yesterday's post-Cabinet media conference at the office of the Prime Minister.
Asked by reporters his assessment of what percentage the People's Partnership Government had performed at so far, Tewarie said: "It will be hard say overall. But if you read the PSIP?report in which there has been almost total expenditure for the sums allocated for last year and you look at what we have done which is itemised in the PSIP?report, you'll see we have done a significant amount of work which is verifiable from the communities.
"My own feeling when you look at all the documents that are available and the progress that has been made I think it would be very difficult to assess this government as having fallen beyond about a 70 per cent achievement rate of its objectives," he said.
He said it was not a perfect government. While it had not attained every target set, he added:?"It is not a government that will come and hide what the reality is-as you have seen in some areas we have fallen short, but in others we have exceeded our own expectations."
On the system to institutionalise an annual measurement of Government performance, Tewarie said Cabinet had agreed on the National Performance Framework that will assess its performance against articulation of the medium-term policy framework (2014).
It will be based on reports from ministries on their plans and reportage on achievement of priority areas for the Government in this period-crime and law and order, agriculture and food security, healthcare service and hospitals, economic growth and job creation, competitiveness, diversification and innovation and poverty reduction.
Tewarie said: "The framework establishes targets so that we will be able to measure what we said we'd do, if we did what we said whether we surpassed it in any areas...so you will also be able to assess what we have done regarding a budget over any year and you can see the results of government action based on budget allocation."
Tewarie said the Government in Parliament reported on what it had done in the Public?Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) 2011:?"And you will then be able to make an assesment of what we have done in relation to the budget for that year.
"This National Performance Framework will allow the public to judge the difference between what we say we will do and what we have actually done."
On who assesses the work, Tewarie said Government would have to do this first via the Planning Ministry's National Transformation Unit which monitors and evaluate the Government system.