Hard-working ministers? Doing what?

Work, work, work. Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, on the occasion of a media interview marking her 40th year in representational politics, said she has no plans to reshuffle her hard-working Cabinet.

There is a standing media ritual of regularly speculating about Cabinet reshuffles, as if shifting the same parliamentary pack of cards around will by some magical means yield greater performance. Any prime minister who keeps First Eleven players on the bench when forming a Cabinet and on standby for call-up later does not deserve the job. "When ministers are performing very well, then I will not interfere," the PM told media. "What I want is for the work to be done. My Cabinet is given that charge."

Against the prime minister's vote of confidence in her current Cabinet, someone had me to know that everybody knows that Bobby Pickersgill, the minister of land, water, environment and climate change, is not a 'worker', but what is a prime minister to do with the powerful chairman of the party who has to be given something to do at a high level in the Cabinet? Not everybody knows that Bobby is not a worker, and Mr Pickersgill, from his own near 40 years in politics, is highly capable of working to defend himself.

Kill-them-dead security portfolio

Outgoing General Secretary Peter Bunting holds the kill-them-dead national security portfolio, and, true to form, a spike in murders last year has led to many calls for his resignation. The callers conveniently choose to forget, or are too ill-informed to know, that no minister of national security, including one who headed both the army and the police force at different times and drafted a Road Map to Safety as consultant to the JLP, has ever managed to peg down crime, particularly murders, in any sustained fashion since Independence.

The prime minister has risen to the defence of her minister of national security, who she plans to keep, at least for the time being, telling us that crime fighting is not a job for that minister alone and communities must help him.

But what do ministers of Government do so we can have some measure and really know whether they are hard-working or not? Much of the assessment, negative or positive, is based on public profile and personality. Some ministries, by their very nature, like National Security, are more in the limelight than others. People are getting murdered every day, we don't like it, and we are frightened. Environment has its own public standing, what with the Goat Islands controversy and others. But what does a minister of land or a minister of climate change do?

Ministers, in general, including the prime minister, are kept very busy doing some things which they would be better off doing less of so they could pay better attention to their real responsibilities. And the public, from years of being misled, has come to believe that these distractions and interferences are required ministerial functions.

Dry speeches

For one thing, ministers chat too much. Labouring through dry speeches written for them by functionaries as they open this or that, launch this or the other, or are guest speakers at yet another civic function to which they are invited, not to hear their dishwater delivery but so that the media will follow them to the function. This may be good politicking with an eye on the next election, but it is hardly a necessary ministerial function. There should be a rule limiting ministers to one such appearance per month, the prime minister to two, leaving them with lots more office time to get proper ministering done.

Far more meaningful, the ministers should regularly report to Parliament on their portfolios and supplement this with periodic press conferences at which questions can be asked and answered.

Ministers should take their fingers out of public-service operations and equip and leave the civil servants to do their jobs and run the departments and agencies of government. Ministers want praise for their now-normalised anti-Westminster interference with the hands-on, nuts-and-bolts functions of the public service as they push 16-hour days and have no time to play golf or to play with their children.

With blissful brevity, which I have further shortened, the Constitution at Section 69 says simply, "There shall be in and for Jamaica a Cabinet which shall consist of the prime minister and ... other ministers. The Cabinet shall be the principal instrument of policy and shall be charged with the general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica and shall be collectively responsible therefor to Parliament."

Yes. That's it. That's Westminster. The chairman and members of the board of any well-run organisation would immediately understand this prescription.

Off-the-record meetings

Another sucker on ministerial time, which is even less visible to public view but is just as real and even more deadly is attending to special-interest needs. The off-the-record breakfast meetings and late-night and weekend soirees, the office visits and phone calls to petition favours because of friendships, memberships, school ties, church ties, party ties, or sector interests.

Not only could ministers save a bundle of time and drastically cut stress levels, but governance would be cleaner and more efficient if that door of access was firmly closed and petitioners directed to functional public-service channels to have their matters dealt with. The prime minister could really help here by publicly declaring that her Government and its ministers will not accommodate. But that might be asking too much of a 40-year political survivor.

Which takes me to a closing note of thanks. Refusing to go through MP or councillor, the now 'normal' route, I called up directly the National Solid Waste Management Authority about garbage collection in a neglected rural community and was put in touch with Mr D, the area manager. D is the starting letter of his real name and not just the generic Jamiekan Missa D! I was given a commitment, as well as his cell phone number.

The first date for the start of biweekly collection was missed - by the work crew in the area. The second date was honoured. Thank you, Mr D.

If the public agencies were made to work better, ministers could work less and devote more of their time to their proper constitutional functions. With time left over for play.

Martin Henry is a university administrator and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com