Learn to maintain what you have, and then you will develop

Your editorial, “Managing Police Vehicles”, Stabroek News, Tuesday, December 21, 2021 could very well have been titled, “Managing the Infrastructure and Public Sector Assets”. In that way, your comments would have relevantly addressed not only the subject matter of your editorial but what generally obtained in the public sector. Take a quick glance at the deplorable condition of our roads, hospitals, drainage and irrigation canals, Georgetown City Hall, schools, and other public buildings and structures, then you will readily agree the responsibilities and remedies are those of the entire citizenry, our elected officials not excluded.

Editor, the maintenance management of our infrastructure and public sector assets has been given a low priority over a very long period. Very little modern-day systems have been utilized to deal with this endeavour. Rather, a ‘screwdriver and pliers’ approach is now the order of the day. I recall when the Public Works Department (PWD), later the Ministry of Works and Hydraulics (MWH), was responsible for the design and construction of roads, maintenance management of most public infrastructure and assets. In my opinion, that was a very healthy beginning and should have been strengthened by successive governments. Instead, over the years those functions and responsibilities of MWH were gradually eroded and, today, the design and construction of roads, the maintenance management of the infrastructure and assets, fall within the ambit of individual ministries, corporations, regions and other quasi-governmental agencies, most of which do not have the technical and other resources to deal with such matters on a professional basis.

Editor, I close by borrowing a line from the advice given to a former Chief Works Officer by the then Premier of the People’s Republic of China during an official visit there, “Learn to maintain what you have, and then you will develop.” Such advice is so much truer today.