BUSINESS MONDAY: ‘PUBLISH ANNUAL REPORTS’

ECONOMIST Dr. Delisle Worrell is lamenting the absence of vital and timely information which would highlight how effective is government expenditure across the public service.

Against this background, Dr. Worrell, who is an international consultant, again called for the timely publication of annual reports by government entities to show what’s going on.

“They would do a great deal to restore our confidence in government administration,” said Dr. Worrell in his December 2020 Economic Letter.

Dr. Worrell also questioned why only $2.5 million is allocated to telecommunications at a time when “higher quality communications networks are so vital to commerce, finance, education and the overall competitiveness of our economy”.

Dr. Worrell, who is also a former Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, said that in order to evaluate expenditure, the country has to examine the performance of each entity in previous years to understand effectively how they used their allocations from Government to provide public services.

The letter begins with a list of government expenditure items compiled from the Approved 2020/21 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure.

The data ranged from an amount of $153 million for primary education to $2.5 million for telecommunications. The items amounted to $1 503 million out of total expenditure $2 856 million. They include what he termed as important items for the future prosperity of Barbadians and the competitiveness of the economy, in such areas as education, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Police, expenses on embassies and foreign missions, defence and security, the National Insurance Scheme and the Barbados Revenue Authority. Investment promotion, tourism and telecommunications completed the list.

However, Dr. Worrell said the most recent information on the Ministry of Education website dates back to 2015/2016. It provided information on the number of teachers, student enrolment, and examination results. In addition, the most recent financial statements for The UWI are for the fiscal year 2018.

According to him, they reveal “a deficit for the Cave Hill Campus caused by an $87 million loss from the Barbados Government debt restructuring programme”.

Furthermore, he reasoned that the absence of education reports up to the 2019/2020 financial year and from The UWI does not allow one to assess the recent performance of the educational institutions and the effectiveness with which they have used funds allocated to them.