As M&CC reforms…
…including healthcare, day care services
Chairman of the Implementation Committee of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) Commission of Inquiry (COI) Mr. Keith Burrowes has recommended that the Council cut back on its subsidization of non-core services in its efforts at making the Council leaner.
In an interview with this reporter, Burrowes said that while the Council performs what he referred to as noble and necessary services, these constituted non-core operations and therefore partnership with various stakeholders should be sought in their execution. “If [partners] are able to provide these services, then the Council would be able to redirect some $300 million [for its core services],” Mr. Burrowes said.
The non-core activities are day care services, maternal and child welfare, youth friendly facility, street lights, parks and open spaces, sanitary facilities, community grounds and tree planting.
The City Budget for 2010 said that the new approach where the non-core services are concerned would be to free up scare financial and other resources to improve the delivery of services for which the Council is mandated by law.
Money used to subsidize day care could be used to build roads, the budget said, adding that this new approach allows for fresh thinking not only in the area of social responsibility but also in the financial ability of the Council to afford such services. Burrowes said that the services are noble but because of the frail state of the Council’s finances, attention needs to be focused on the core services.
The Report said that it must be noted that times have changed and the burden of delivering certain services has expanded beyond what was envisaged at the time of promulgation of the legislation 40 years ago.
Volume 1 of the COI report says that the core activities of the Council are those outlined in the Chapter 28:01 and that the non-core activities are everything extraneous of the Act. According to the Report, the Commissioner has concluded from the work of the Commission that the Council is in fact subsidizing the non-core activities.
In the Report, the Commissioner said that it may be useful for the Council to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding with each actor engaged in the provision of non-core services to the Council. The aim of the MOU would be to aim towards the reduction of expenditure on the non-core activities in the long term. The Report recommended that immediate action be taken to ensure that information coming out of the City Treasurer’s Department accurately reflects the total associated with engaging in the non-core activities.
According to the Report, the Treasurer’s Department must also be in a position to establish the total costs associated with conducting all activities of the Council, particularly with regard to external support via cash, in kind, or the provision of human resource services.
Burrowes said that the Government of Guyana has given almost $1 billion to the Council over the years and noted that if this support were withdrawn, then the healthcare and other non-core activities of the Council will be jeopardized. The withdrawal will also affect the Council’s ability in core areas such as road repair.
The M&CC’s 2010 Budget in its review of factors which affected the ability of the Council to meet its targets in 2009 gave day care centres and maternal and child welfare services dismal rankings. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best and 1 being worst), most of the indicators of service delivery and effectiveness received 1 and 2. Among the concerns raised in the budget for day care centres in 2009 were inadequate financing, inability to conduct frequent monitoring visits, timely distribution to centres, the lack of, or inadequate outdoor play facilities at three centres, inadequate tools necessary to address the challenges of meeting children’s motor skills development, and the inability to address adequate early childhood development materials.
For maternal and child welfare, the concerns pointed out in the budget were staff shortages, lack of  planning for succession, inadequate furnishing at health centres, the lack of a refrigerator at Queenstown, inadequate transportation for outreach programmes, and the lack of communication services at some centres. There was also found to have a lack of supervision of junior staff.
In an analysis of the targets achieved by the non-core services, the report showed that while there was evidence of progress, in many instances, many of the deliverables were not 100 percent achieved.
Burrowes opined in a previous article that unless “some cathartic change is undergone by the human resources available to the Council, particularly at the level of policy formulation, the Implementation Committee might as well be throwing an I-pad into a village of cave-men.”
He said that the true test of this year’s budget is going to be not so much what happens this year, but next year.  “Budget 2010 is going to find its validation in 2011, when, hopefully, the various components will find traction, the human resource capacity of the implementing entity is going to be greatly improved, the enabling environment with regard to local government will be better, and the system is strengthened with the infusion of enough new blood, and capital,” said Burrowes.

(This article is the third in a series of features looking at the work of the Implementation Committee in implementing in the M&CC the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry led by Keith Burrowes. The recommendations of the COI are meant to not only make the operations of the M&CC more efficient, but also enhance accountability.)