A GUY'S VIEW: We need a committee on committees

“If you see a snake, just kill it – don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”

– Ross Perot.

“A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.”

– Fred Allen.

The current Government came into office boasting of its knowledge of all things and its ability to solve all of this country’s problems. In opposition, they were fantastic at identifying problems and, according to some, creating problems. However, the plethora of advisers and consultants which they secured on assuming office should have alerted us that there would be problems.

From the very beginning, just about everything was done questionably. Some put it down to newness but a solution had to be found. Committees!

The idea to establish committees to make every decision was a boss move. If things go wrong, as they often seem to these days, blame the committee. If by accident something works well, forget the committee and take the credit. “After all, it was my idea to establish the committee in the first place.” A perfect political world.

In a previous life I was told that a committee is what you set up when you want to disguise not working. That same person also told me that you can’t be in a meeting and work at the same time because meetings are not productive work: committees only meet.

Even if one were to question the truth of these wise committee observations, a look at the Barbados situation would show that our recent committees are an admission. It would be totally illogical to resort to committees to develop programmes when Ministers, advisors, consultants and a body of public servants have responsibility for those issues and could work on them, if all of the above had not struggled.

A committee has been set up to address Republicanism, but no reference is being made to the people of Barbados. The entire population of Barbados needs to be a committee on whether or not this country should become a republic.

Before one can address the form of the republic, one has to answer the question of whether we should be a republic. And that is not the decision of 60 politicians and a committee. The people of Barbados should make that decision. The issue here is not what the big- ups think, but what system of governance under which the people of this country want to live.

The popular thing to say is we are better than this and we are in this together, but none of that is true. We are not better than the elitism and the rich are not in the struggles of this country with the poor. The two Barbadoses are far and growing further apart.

Since it now seems established that no good decisions can be made except by committee, we need a committee on how integrity may be brought to government and governance. We need a committee to set out how a Government may be held to its promises. We need a committee to tell us how to give the Auditor General the power to lock up people if they disregard this country’s financial rules. There needs to be a committee to help management there to stamp out any theft at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Another one is needed to tell the Government how to control crime andviolence in the country. An important committee is needed to remind us how to keep workers’ unions independent of Government.

The resort to committees is a cry for help by the Government, but there is nothing wrong with asking for help if you do not know what to do. The bigger issue is that we continue to pay top dollar to too many people who seem not to be able to contribute anything positive to the development of our country.쁇