AS WAS recently published in the local media, the President has taken the decision to extend the life of state boards for another three months, up to the end of March. I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit a topic I’ve dealt with, from various perspectives, several times over the life of this column.
From the records of my columns, as loosely kept as they are, I first wrote on the topic of state boards in December of 2009, a little over two years ago. My angle then was to examine the membership of state boards from the perspective of public service volunteerism. In summary, that article dealt with three considerations that I wanted to explore regarding accepting an appointment to a state board: (1) the commitment to the work required of a board member, particularly considering that it was unremunerated; (2) the suitability of one’s professional qualification or capacity relevant to the board appointed to; and (3) the sense of personal accountability that I believe that you should possess, considering that, while good decisions taken at a board are met with praise, there is no real sanction attached to bad decisions made by a board.
Whereas in my previous article, I took a primarily interrogative approach to issues raised, this time around I’m going to put forward a couple of suggestions. First of all, I believe the issues of ‘personal commitment’ and ‘qualification’ can be linked and solved jointly. As a member of several state boards, I can say from observation that while frankly an individual’s competence (or lack thereof) has been an issue on occasion, a greater problem has been the familiarity with the mandate and scope of work of a particular entity.
It isn’t rocket science to realise that if you are not familiar with the basic context in which you’re operating, then you can’t make proper decisions with regard to how an entity functions. My solution is for the government, being responsible for the appointment of state boards, to create an orientation manual for every state board (its members), partially an introduction to state boards and a manual tailored to the respective entities.
The manual would be simple: Section A would be a generic primer on the function and protocol of state boards in general; Section B would be board-specific information. For example, I would imagine the information in Section B including an updated historical summary of the entity; profiles on key personnel; a contextual snapshot of the entity, something you can pull from the annual report, but including a conceptual narrative of the goals (periodic and medium term) of the entity; and finally, a summary, as I have suggested in at least one previous article, of key decisions made by the board during the preceding five years.

As an adjunct to this strategy of defining the mandate and goals, I believe that the executive can play a more direct role in the communication of overall government policy to the various boards – I’d like to humbly suggest to the newly elected President, His Excellency Donald Ramotar, that a general meeting and a personal charge from him would be an invaluable method of not only communicating his agenda but would also be a tool for cohesion of those boards.
From the perspective of the government, I believe that there can be several steps taken to improve the functioning of state boards in a holistic manner. A simple short-term solution would be the establishment of a clear and documented protocol for the appointment of members of state boards. While I have to think more expansively on precisely what such a protocol would look like, I can immediately envision a system for the periodic evaluation of both prospective and existing members of state boards: for new members, this would include a basic assessment of relevant competence, linked to the orientation manual suggested above, in addition to a signed or sworn commitment by appointees to perform to the best of their abilities; and for existing members, a periodic review which includes appointee feedback on specific areas he or she feels that they could benefit from, such as enhanced capacity or additional technical assistance.
A more ambitious solution would be a significant evolution in both the way boards are constituted and how they function. I’ve made the case repeatedly that information needs to be shared more strategically across sectors so that policy can be more strategically formulated across sectors. In the case of state boards, I see no reason why we cannot thematically group the boards of particularly smaller state corporations and semi-autonomous agencies and appoint a single board to deal with each thematic area. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds: I, as I’ve stated before, am a member of several state boards, the same applying for several individuals that I know – consolidating board membership according to thematic areas simply streamlines this situation, the result being enhanced synergy, including better negotiation capacity when dealing with external agencies, and more strategic resource mobilisation.
Finally, since I still hold out on the hope that we will see true consensus in the running of the country, I want to put forward. I read recently in the press that the opposition wanted a greater say in the operation of state boards: while not privy to or intending to prejudice any executive position on the issue, I would like to suggest that a manageable measure, either in totality, or as a first step towards greater [to the point of reason] inclusiveness, would be to give the respective parliamentary sub-committees periodic access to state boards, perhaps on a quarterly basis. This would tie in with what I’ve recommended in my articles on the enhancement of technical assistance and capacity-building in the management of the business of the legislative arm of government, particularly in how it relates to the executive.
In the upcoming weeks, I’m going to expand on a few areas that time, space and context would not allow me to explore further in this article, particularly the enhanced state board and also I will be looking at the negotiating mechanisms for government engagement with donor agencies.