Leaders must be held accountable

If there is greater transparency in public life and in matters affecting the country, this will allow for ordinary citizens, as well as civil society organisations, to hold the nation’s leaders accountable for the decisions they make.

Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Relations, Colin Jordan suggested the above, as he delivered remarks during the IDB Group’s IX Annual Caribbean Civil Society Meeting which was held at the Hilton Hotel yesterday, under the theme “Citizen Engagement for Transparency”. That forum brought together representatives and experts from Barbados, Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, and Jamaica, for this high-level dialogue.

“Transparency in public life and in matters affecting the country will allow ordinary people and civil society organisations that represent ordinary people, to hold leaders and by leaders I refer not just to political leaders, but it includes political leaders, it includes public servants, it also includes business leaders and leaders of civil society, all of us as leaders need to be held accountable and therefore, transparency will assist ordinary citizens, in holding us accountable for what we are supposed to be doing,” Minister Jordan remarked.

“What we are aiming for therefore, is a system where people become involved in policy development and formulation, where they are using timely and relevant information that has been shared with them and explained to them, they are using that information to make assessments and to make timely decisions, thus enabling them to hold their leaders accountable, for the resources that have been placed in their stewardship,” he added.

He meanwhile noted that when it comes to the dissemination of information in the public domain on the part of government and key leaders, civil society and ordinary citizens must be able to make use of the information for analysis, for assessment and for decision-making and as such, there has to be real effort to ensure that the information is not just given, but packaged in a way that it can be understood by the recipients of that information. He however pointed out the need to find ways to manage “fake news”, adding that there is misinformation in the media, especially social media.

The issue of transparency also came up later, during a panel discussion held with Alexandre Meira da Rosa, Vice-president for Countries at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Therese Turner-Jones, General Manager for the IDB’s Country Department Caribbean Group (CCB) and The Honourable Marsha Caddle, Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment.

During this segment, Therese Turner-Jones pointed out that transparency is closely linked to citizens’ access to information. She meanwhile stated that of the six nations that comprise the CCB, five have freedom of information laws and Barbados is yet to enact such legislation, though the Mottley administration has promised to pass the long-awaited Freedom of Information Act.

However, Minister Marsha Caddle, in acknowledging the long awaited Freedom of Information legislation in Barbados, suggested that key information should be made readily available to citizens in the interest of transparency and the legislation therefore would only need to speak to certain types of information, in terms of having it disseminated. The legislation, when it is passed, should also not serve to delay the delivery of information, or frustrate the process, because of any timelines given, she said. (RSM)