Posts
Every so often Government is called upon to privatise aspects of its operations so as to achieve greater efficiencies. These calls are typically made around budget time and they almost invariably emanate from right of centre commentators and politicians. Invoking the dramatic actions of US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in this regard, the case for privatisation rests on the assumption that governments are bad business managers and, conversely, that private enterprise does it better.
Such ideologically driven over-simplifications make for good political fodder but they fall far short of making sense out of the complicated reality. The reality is that far from the expansive, some will say, intrusive state we see in Europe and Canada, for example, our government treads lightly. Bermuda’s government has certainly increased its role in society over the past ten years but this has to be seen against the backdrop of previous governments which embodied a political ethos that begrudgingly accepted liberal goals but never got around to providing people with the capacity to achieve those goals.
Proponents of privatisation here will find there are few targets. This is mainly because government has typically involved itself in providing services in areas where the private sector has not seen an opportunity to make a profit or has been prevented from doing so because of the costs to entry. Government builds affordable housing precisely for these reasons.
There have been calls for matters involving tourism to be placed outside of the confines of government, in an authority dominated by people in the tourism business. The rationale here is that an organisation that is able to make decisions quickly by people with a vested interest will always do a better job than civil servants. While there is clear merit in harnessing the talent of the private sector in re-building tourism, when government is providing the funding there is an inescapable control that necessarily follows.
The Department of Airport Operations has also been identified as an area ripe for privatisation; this too has been raised sporadically and follows a model adopted in a number of other jurisdictions. With good traffic and a number of revenue streams, managing an airport can be a lucrative enterprise. Just ask BAA.
Such ideologically driven over-simplifications make for good political fodder but they fall far short of making sense out of the complicated reality. The reality is that far from the expansive, some will say, intrusive state we see in Europe and Canada, for example, our government treads lightly. Bermuda’s government has certainly increased its role in society over the past ten years but this has to be seen against the backdrop of previous governments which embodied a political ethos that begrudgingly accepted liberal goals but never got around to providing people with the capacity to achieve those goals.
Proponents of privatisation here will find there are few targets. This is mainly because government has typically involved itself in providing services in areas where the private sector has not seen an opportunity to make a profit or has been prevented from doing so because of the costs to entry. Government builds affordable housing precisely for these reasons.
There have been calls for matters involving tourism to be placed outside of the confines of government, in an authority dominated by people in the tourism business. The rationale here is that an organisation that is able to make decisions quickly by people with a vested interest will always do a better job than civil servants. While there is clear merit in harnessing the talent of the private sector in re-building tourism, when government is providing the funding there is an inescapable control that necessarily follows.
The Department of Airport Operations has also been identified as an area ripe for privatisation; this too has been raised sporadically and follows a model adopted in a number of other jurisdictions. With good traffic and a number of revenue streams, managing an airport can be a lucrative enterprise. Just ask BAA.
Given this, I don’t know why any government would want to give up what should be a profit centre, generating revenue that can help fund more programmes to benefit the people. If the issue is bureaucratic inertia in the civil service that hamper decisions, or perhaps, Ministerial interference that nullifies sensible decision making, there are alternative structures that address these issues while keeping a profit centre under government control. An effective alternative is the establishment of what Canadians call Crown Corporations, a company set up to make a profit where there is a single shareholder, the government. Such a company (or companies) could operate areas in government identified as profit centres where it is practicable to do so. A board would provide oversight but day to day management would be by an executive team who would run it as they would any other company. The profits would be distributed by the owner (government) to fund government initiatives.
Much of what government provides is inconsistent with a “for profit” approach: education for all, health care, social services, negotiating treaties, and so on. For those limited areas which either currently generate a profit or have the potential to do so, we should examine carefully and then pursue vigorously. Good governance requires that we utilise state resources to the optimum benefit of the people.
It requires that we rebuff private sector attempts to cherry-pick the most profitable sectors of government and hand them over to private pecuniary interests. And it requires that we suppress attempts to make ideologically-driven decisions that support a particular worldview yet fall short of sensible and defensible policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment