One of the issues that stood out during the transition from the previous PNM government to the new one under the UNC has been the apparent dragging of feet by senior members of state enterprises appointed under the last administration.
To the point that, not long ago, the new Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, described the refusal of some to resign and their actions whilst still in charge as “the most shameless type of behaviour I’ve ever seen exhibited during a change of government”.
And Mrs Persad-Bissessar went on to say that ‘the principle is that when the Government changes, you go’, adding that, if they were doing well, they could be re-appointed.
Indeed, over time a kind of practice has been developed in Trinidad and Tobago that board members and senior executives of the dozens of state enterprises and similar government-funded entities resign once the Government changes.
At this point, it is important to point out that this is a practice that has developed over time but is disconnected from what the laws regulating such entities demand.
In essence, this wholesale changeover at board and executive levels is a political thing, not a management thing, and definitely not best practice.
If anything, and if state entities were truly run with the best for the country in mind, stability and professionalism should be the driving forces behind the appointments, not political allegiances and changes of government.
And here lies one of the biggest problems behind the controversy over the resignation of board members and executive teams from state-owned or controlled entities—it seems to be less about competencies and more about what is seen as just rewards for the winning party.
In other words, the impression ordinary citizens have is that what matters the most for the party in power is their opportunity to go headfirst down the state enterprise trough instead of striving to ensure government-owned or run institutions are managed in the best and most professional way.
Or to put it even more simply: the real shareholders of these state entities are not the parliamentarians who happen to be in power, but the citizens, the taxpayers who help fund them and, when things go wrong (as they often do), also bail them out. Therefore, their interests should be at the centre of such decisions, not party politics.
Instead, what we have witnessed is the usual T&T post-election mudslinging, when the new party in power goes out of its way to show how badly the previous government messed things up (and, in fairness, the UNC is only doing now what the PNM did after the election in 2015).
But that is a real pity.
What we know is that the quality of our state boards (as well as some of the executive teams) is variable, not helped by regular political interference.
This leads to the poor running of these bodies and sets a terrible example when it comes to employment practices and performance management.
After all, if the main merit of someone’s appointment to sit on a board or run a state entity is their political colours, employees will not be encouraged to do the right thing, increase productivity and, God forbid, make these enterprises profitable (or at least not loss-making).
And if the governance can be so poor that these boards don’t keep the executive on the right track and fail to fulfil their statutory obligations, like filing accounts and other legal documents on time, the chances of them providing the best services and value for money to citizens are next to zero.
All of this is even more relevant when the State is not the single shareholder, as their majority stake also carries a duty to ensure that minority ones are not short-changed in the process.
The new Government has missed (or is missing, as there is still time!) a major opportunity to seek to dismiss the previous boards and executives from state entities not just to replace them with whoever takes its fancy, but to set up a better and more transparent approach, backed up by new or updated laws designed to ensure that such appointments are made solely on merit and with clear contractual terms that should also state the duration of the tenure in post.
That could even include a succession roster to ensure that no political party would have full control of a state board by having a scheduled rotation of non-executives out of synch with the elections.
And there should be more robust ways to ensure that board and executive members of state entities are made responsible for their failures (as well as being rewarded for their successes), so that we don’t have lamentable situations such as the ones faced by some of them at the Companies Registry as they endure being struck off due to their failure to file legally required documents in time.
Whether T&T has too many of these state companies and entities is for another discussion. But if we are to retain them, as a minimum we need to ensure they have the most robust, transparent and professional approach towards their management–from the board chairs all the way down to the most junior member of staff.
Anything less than that is a betrayal of those who sweat every month to pay their taxes in the expectation that the State will fulfil its side of the bargain.
