After two and a half years it seems as though it has finally dawned on the government and its institutions that we are faced with a serious long term financial crisis that requires extraordinary leadership and creative measures for us to weather the storm. It will also demand a discipline and a measure of fiscal restraint that has not been the hallmark of this administration. The continuous widening of the fiscal deficit is unsustainable and cannot be solved by additional taxation but must be addressed by reining in the expenditure of government and stimulating the productivity of all sectors of the economy.
When it comes to productivity it seems as though we do not understand what it is and how poor productivity has a negative cascading effect on the quality of life and waste of our financial resources. We are often regaled with exhortations from political and business leaders as well as academic observers about the need to improve our productivity in a way that suggests that people need to work harder. Instead people need to work smarter and organize their work to minimize disruptions. We need to see increased productivity in a positive light as something that is measurable, attainable and a benefit to society. It takes someone with a visceral feel for the issue of productivity to put systems and incentives in place to encourage significant improvements in productivity.
Instead we get lip service with the repetitive mantra of the need to be more productive while we continue to tolerate mediocrity, featherbedding and mountainous overtime work. It is long past time for us to do better.
One example of poor scheduling of work was the painting of road markings at Six Cross Roads on the weekend which is the busiest time of the week for that intersection. To compound matters the work was done between 9am and 2pm when, at this time of year, work could well have commenced at 5am and completed by 9am. By scheduling an early start to the work it would have been done at a cooler time of day and completed in less time with much less traffic disruption. A win win situation for workers and motorists alike.
Another instance was being informed that a product would be available at a supermarket on a specific day only to find out at midday that they were waiting for customs officers to open the container after 4:30pm when they were paid overtime to do so. Not only did this add cost to consumers but it necessitated an additional 10 mile round trip to get the item that I needed. Thus the scheduling of overtime for a couple of customs officers inconvenienced scores of customers and wasted gallons of petrol by consumers who were forced to make multiple trips to obtain a scarce commodity.
The above are small issues in the overall context of the national economy but big things are made up of many small things and if we take care of the small things the big things will take care of themselves. We were promised greater transparency and better governance by this administration; instead we have been served with a sense of denial, smoke screens and drift. Perhaps it is just as well that they are embarking on a sunset cruise to nowhere this weekend.
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