…Gov’t reports dramatic improvement in public sector investment programme

PUBLIC Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) has dramatically improved, Minister of State Joseph Harmon said while attributing the recent success of the programme to a decision by Cabinet to have mandatory meetings on a monthly basis with permanent secretaries and key technical personnel from Government Ministries.

A critical analysis of PSIPs between 2014 and mid 2017 revealed that the performances of many projects left much to be desired. However, Minister Harmon said from June 2017, there has been a dramatic turnaround.

“Since Cabinet instituted monthly briefings by permanent secretaries to Cabinet, what I can say, there has been a dramatic turnaround in the performance of these projects in the PSIP and that by the end of 2017, all of the agencies…were reporting completions within the rate of 75 to 100 per cent,” he told reporters at Ministry of the Presidency on Thursday.

He explained that permanent secretaries and technical officers of Government are required to report directly to Cabinet. With this system in place, Minister Harmon said the projections for 2018 are promising.

“The projections for 2018, when we look at them what we saw was that because we had an early budget in November of 2017 for 2018, that works started in 2017 for 2018 and the understanding that we have from almost all of the agencies was that by April, May, June there about, that all of the work that has to be done on contracts would be advertised, tenders dealt with contracts awarded,” the state minister explained.

He said when Cabinet met on Tuesday last it engaged permanent secretaries, as well as key technical officers from the Ministry of Finance on Government’s spending under the PSIP. “It may be recalled that significant sums of money allocated under the PSIP in 2015, 2016 and 2017 were not efficiently and effectively disbursed and that several contracts had been poorly administered and had involved costly over-runs.

It was decided therefore that Cabinet would hold monthly statutory meetings with permanent secretaries to ensure efficient and effective disbursement of PSIP funds and to monitor such spending,” Harmon said. He noted that Cabinet also resolved to institute whatever measures were necessary to ensure that contracts awarded under the PSIP would be executed within the budgets and time-frames prescribed and that appropriate penalties would be applied for default.

On Tuesday, the deliberations on the PSIP included a review of 2017 and a work plan for 2018. The review of PSIP spending for 2017 included an overall analysis of the programme, the overall out-turn for fiscal year, project execution rate at half-year and PSIP expenditure by month (2014-2017).

In 2018, permanent secretaries have already established procurement plans for all agencies and have reinstituted a format for PSIP monitoring reports.

Prioritising disbursement for small non-technical projects, while planning for large technical contracts; compulsory training for relevant staff; institutional strengthening; and improved working relations between relevant agencies, were among other key areas discussed.