REPORT #536 October 2002
WHEN YOU CAN TELL A BELIZE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT IS NOT FUNCTIONING RIGHT!


Produced by the Belize Development Trust

Well, at least one of the ways you can tell? Outside of the Education Department and the School Systems, there really isn't any requirement for any Belizean government department to get into the training business.

You can tell when a government department is lost, no longer has any direction, or able to follow their mission statement.

The first thing that happens is MAKE WORK. Make work usually increases paperwork and red tape for the public. The mission of any government department is SERVICE to the general public. The word SERVICE means to facilitate, expedite and make whatever business you are in, easier for the public.

What happens with government departments that lose the SERVICE motto and their MISSION statement becomes confused; is an increase in regulations and paper requirements. This is usually followed by new licenses, permits and other regulatory apparatus. Solely for the convenience of the bureaucratic government department. NEVER for the purpose of helping the PUBLIC increase business.

You really realize they have lost their way, when the same department then start running training courses as part of the requirement for the new regulations, permits and licenses. NO government department, other than the EDUCATION Department has any business getting into the training business, for any public person, starting, or running a business. This is the province of EDUCATION departments. Training programs can be contracted from the private sector when needed, but not organized and run by government departments.

We could use the glaring example of the Belize Tourist Board, supposedly a department created to increase tourism visits to Belize. Nowadays, you know they have lost their MISSION STATEMENT and service aspects, because they are MAKING WORK. To justify their existance and hide the fact that they do not know what to do.

There really isn't any solution to a government department that becomes an abberation and loose cannon in any industry in Belize. The only solution that works is SHRINKAGE! A firing of staff, mostly senior administrative levels and deadwood. Anybody who is in a decision policy making position in the bureaucracy of that department. And starting again from scratch!

In big countries this process goes on, but is much harder to see. In a College, like where my wife works, you can see this more in the case of individuals. Individuals start to substitute MAKE WORK outside of their hiring parameters, trying to justify their job and salary. But in reality, they are simply covering up, for their failure to follow the MISSION STATEMENT. Their personal shortcomings and skills make quotas and goals as required by academia a failure. When this happens, contracts get terminated and you hire a new one, and clarify once again the MISSION STATEMENT. In Belize, it is also very easy to see, because the whole population of Belize is smaller even than a college in the USA. The deadwood is blatent! You know them by MAKE WORK!

And the identifiers are new regulations, permits and licenses and training programs for the public.

This government today this year, is bloated with DEADWOOD, or as some less friendly call it. Nepotism, or political patronage! Whichever way, you look at it.

Look for the identifiers to see if a government department has kept it's FOCUS on PUBLIC SERVICE. You will know them by the identifiers.

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