WHEN THE history of the Patterson administration is analysed and written, one aspect that will feature prominently is the incumbent Prime Minister's failure as a leader to hold persons under his watch sufficiently responsible for the manner in which they have conducted public affairs and handled the nation's finances.
Yesterday's front page story highlighted another of the costly blunders in the information technology (IT) sector, specifically, that of more than $150 million being wasted on refurbishing the Springfield Technology Park in Morant Bay, St. Thomas a park that never was.
After the scandalous waste of public funds in the collapse of NetServ Jamaica in 2001, the Prime Minister famously defended the role played by the Minister of Technology, Phillip Paulwell as 'youthful exuberance'. Other failures and more wastage of public funds were to follow in the collapse of Teleservices Jamaica in Portmore, St. Catherine. Fanciful projections of 10,000 to 40,000 jobs over five years have yet to materialise and we continue to pour money down the IT drain.
In the instant case of Springfield, Senator Noel Sloley told the Senate on Friday that the kind of investors needed for the IT sector had a preference for Montego Bay. Presumably this 'discovery' was made long after millions of dollars had already been spent in refurbishing the former Goodyear Tyre Factory in Morant Bay. So the plan to fix up the place and then encourage investors to move to an area to employ low-skilled and under-prepared people died in gestation.
It is elementary to good business practice that feasibility studies be done to ascertain a market for a product, available infrastructure and human resources and most importantly knowing the needs of the persons with whom we want to enter business arrangements.
The wastage of public money on the Springfield project is symbolic of the exuberant waste that has characterised the tenure of this Government. And it continues because there is a fundamental absence of accountability and decency in looking after the nation's business. Hardly anyone is ever held responsible for their actions. The attitude continues to be one of "Oops ... sorry; did it again!"
It is not enough, as Senator Sloley said on Friday, for "the Government to admit that it erred and move on". Move on to what? The next episode of bungling? What have we learnt from the previous episodes, not only in the IT sector, but in the general administration of the Government? Who is being held accountable? In the meantime, Mr. Paulwell continues to make fanciful statements about the sector the latest being that schools will become so technology-driven, that in a few years, chalk and blackboard methods of teaching will be extinct. Somebody is taking the nation for a grand ride.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
