Minister Nicholas speaks on the existence of Government Inefficiency

By Orville Charles

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Minister Melford Nicholas has given some insight into the work processes of the Government of Antigua and Barbuda, examined through the lens of his own past and present experiences.

Nicholas, in an appearance on Pointe FM said that there are inefficiencies in government because of what he referred to as the “rules of engagement” – namely the bureaucracy that is inherent in the system, with its many different documents, inspections, and confirmations that are needed to satisfy the existing process.

“What is even more complicated is that, when it is paper driven, it goes from individual to individual, and then we lose track sometimes of where we are in the process”, Nicholas said.

Minister Nicholas spoke of his experience with red tape culture when he first came into office, specifically in the area of communication – referring to the process as a holdover from the old way of doing things.

“Even I, coming from a private sector background when I joined the government, one of the first things that I recognized is that there are some very ancient – in my mind – sometimes antiquated and even some out-moded methodologies of moving information through and across the government.”

“When I joined the government in 2014, permanent secretaries were communicating with staff and their other colleagues with some really long letter forms…that they would prepare and minute. Then these minutes would be circulated to other members of the government, other permanent secretaries, other senior officials in the ministry”, he said.

Nicholas cited the process as an encumbrance that he felt necessary to offload, though he remarked on the difficulties that others had in acclimating.

“One of the first initiatives that I would’ve…brought into the operations of the government was an electronic messaging platform system. Simply put, it allowed permanent secretaries, and all members of staff to be on the same messaging platform – such that information can flow between parties in the government, and document sharing and other collaboration tools could’ve been made available for the public service to operate.”

“It took a while before many members – many permanent secretaries, several ministers – before they came on board with the use of the technology and adopted it as their way of doing business”, Nicholas said.

As it was shared in the wake of the recently concluded teacher’s strike and subsequent shake-up in the Ministry of Education, this commentary from Nicholas gives some insight into the barriers that governments have to overcome in their efforts to modernize and provide efficient public service.