‘Clinics’ fruitful in fast-tracking public sector project implementation
The Finance Ministry’s ‘clinics’ with Regional Executive Officers and Permanent Secretaries about what needs to be done to accelerate the implementation of projects is showing signs of bearing fruit.
Minister of State Joseph Harmon on Monday said government is making progress in increasing the pace at which multi-million dollar infrastructural projects of the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) are being implemented. “Based on the overall assessment, there has been significant improvement in the performance of ministries, departments and regional organisations with respect to the spending and with respect to performance under the PSIP,” Harmon said.
He told the opening of a ‘Public Policy Analysis Management and Project Cycle Management training programme being conducted by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), that that was the conclusion emerging from a meeting between Cabinet and Permanent Secretaries and Technical Officers held last month. That meeting reviewed spending in 2017 and discussions on 2018 work-plans.
In May 2017, Finance Minister Winston Jordan had said that the rate of PSIP implementation had declined to 20 percent at a time when the economy had been in need of a stimulus.
Harmon noted that when the APNU+AFC coalition came to power in May 2015, there had been issues of transparency, poor quality of work and slothful implementation which government had to address.
Director of the Finance Ministry’s Project Cycle Management Division, Tarachand Balgobin said last month he and his colleagues briefed Cabinet about the progress of the 2017 Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) and their 2018 strategy for enhanced timely implementation.
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