The Trinidad Guardian -Online Edition Ver 2.0

www.quentrall.com

Available health data too old

It’s hard to have any sympathy for the attacks on the police recently, for the simple reason that they brought it on themselves.

They couldn’t care less when ordinary citizens were attacked and murdered, as demonstrated by their lack of action.

Now, the criminals have become so emboldened they feel they can murder officers and shoot up their homes with impunity.

And to show how out of touch the police are with reality, they offer a paltry $25,000 reward, when most criminals earn more than that in a month!

Of course, the politicians and the citizens are powerless to help or guide the police, because they are totally immune from the ordinary rules of success and failure by an archaic Police Service Commission.

And forget the police complaints body…Remember the figures they issued..? Something like 600 complaints; only a fraction investigated and only one officer disciplined.

I’m afraid, my friends, this is a case of “Doctor heal thyself.” Let’s hope the next chief of police is not some other long-serving “trustee” who is just marking time until retirement.

Let’s hope they choose a technology-savvy 40-year-old with a burning determination to prove himself. And give him the authority to put out to pasture the rest of the old guard that is blocking progress.

Health sector data

You have to cry…In, not so sweet T&T, data is almost impossible to get, even for things that should be shared such as health.

Go to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention www.cdc.gov to see what I mean.

There, you can find incredible amounts of up-to-date data on just about every health challenge, including birth defects, cancer, Aids, foetal alcohol syndrome, flu, hepatitis, etc.

Go to www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index and scroll down to see real data, even for 2008 for flu outbreaks in the US.

Now, go to www.health.gov.tt for information on the situation in T&T. Click on “Statistics” and you will see the latest report available is 2002-2003. Don’t the public servants in the T&T Government have any shame?

The latest report is five years old and no one cares?

It’s bizarre!...There must be more up-to-date reports than that available…Or is our new Minister of Health Jerry Narace going to stand up in Parliament and say all his solutions are based on totally outdated info?

And if he has more up-to-date information, why not share it with all of us? Or, is it a matter of national security, and the drug lords might make use of it!

Declaration of assets

I have been thinking about the problem of drawing on the talents of the private sector to help run the country without asking them to disclose what, after all, is their personal business.

Two points occurred to me. In the first place, there are lots of areas that the Government shouldn’t be in and should leave the private sector to run, for example, VMCOTT, which supposedly maintains government vehicles.

I say supposedly, because no comparative figures are produced showing the cost to service a vehicle at VMCOTT, compared with doing it at, say, Neal & Massy or Southern Sales.

There is no Web site with turnaround times, etc. All I know is every time I pass and look in the yard it is packed with vehicles waiting to be serviced.

Take inter-island transport as another example. The Government subsidises one airline and one shipping company, so there will never be competition, and we will never know what the true price should be.

Why not offer the subsidy to any company that wants to run the route with either a plane or a boat. Just check out St Vincent and watch the ferries to Bequia run by the private sector there compete with one another for passengers.

The second point—and this applies throughout government—is that if you had a totally transparent tendering and accounting process, then you would have no need to ask people to declare their assets.

If all—and I mean all—tender notices were published in the newspapers, and all tenders were not only opened publicly, but were published on the various ministries’ Web sites, complete with any conditions, and all evaluation results were published and all awards were published, then if there was any corruption it would quickly be exposed.

And you could bet your bottom dollar the tenderers who didn’t get the job would be the first to complain if there was any hanky panky.

Of course, a special court would be needed to evaluate speedily charges of favouritism in tender awards, so projects wouldn’t be delayed.

It would take a while to set up a totally transparent system, because sadly, we are a long, long way from that ideal.

Indeed, I remember 30 years ago when you received your copy of the Government Gazette, there were long lists of tender awards.

Today, there are hardly any details shown, despite the fact that the Government is spending over $100 million every day of its life.

It makes it hard to believe the voluminous words the ministers, including the PM, spout about accountability.

Just a thought.