This is Who We Are

I took responsibility for ensuring a seamless client experience this weekend and I fell short. I am doing what I can to make recompense and, hopefully, repair relations. I write this article with a sense of shame. It is this feeling and experience that somewhat inspires today’s article.

It’s funny how tables turn quickly, especially when you think you’ve covered your bases. Even so, I am well aware that I have dropped many a ball in my life. God forbid it, though there is certainty that it will happen again in the future. We all must live with that fact. What we do to correct course is what matters. It gives space for growth. It builds trust. However, changed behaviour must be evident.

That last bit is imperative. The tables did turn this week for me because I had reason to lament a ball dropped by our government last week. My matter was not of the headline-making sort, but I saw a connection to the economy that I will draw now. Last Tuesday, I spent a cumulative 45 minutes on the phone listening to the COVID-19 pandemic awareness anthem, “This is Who We Are”. I was waiting to receive information from the Treasury in the mid-afternoon, well after lunch hours but with more than 90 minutes before offices closed. The operator did, on several occasions, what he could to transfer me to the responsible parties. I was given the impression that there may be a staffing issue.

I found the waiting-song choice mundane and irrelevant. One would think that the lyrics may matter, in a sense, but that period is long gone—and Barbados has new challenges to deal with. In no way do I suggest that they should spend money on a newer but banal “rallying” song. They’re better off playing what some call elevator music. My rationale here is that, given the general attention to service in Barbados, the song seems to insult the caller more than it does inspire, or help to pass the time while waiting.

All of this waiting has a severe economic cost. The first thing you learn in microeconomics is what we will term here as “inputs”. These constitute all of the resources meant to be manipulated into economic activity. A critical one is Time, as that can never be replaced.

Government is the lynchpin of our society. It is a monopoly and is the only entity that economists consider important enough to have its own sector. Take that for what it is. Time as an input has value depending on the observer of that time. You, the individual, will always value your time differently from others. This is who we are.

Every second that public servants are unable to execute their duties because of bottlenecks leads to lost time that accumulates. In my case, the information I needed from the Treasury was meant not just to help myself but an older relative who entrusted me with their affairs.

I couldn’t help but think of what these sorts of delays in the Treasury could have meant for the cash flow of many a small business or pensioner in Barbados, who might have enquired similarly during the same period. Those bottlenecks seem permanent, regardless of the day. I want to be clear here that the staff that I typically deal with at the Treasury are accommodating.

My gripe is with one procedure that I believe is a larger issue than that of any individual public officer stationed there. In the end, my issue was resolved at the eleventh hour. I know of one other individual who received helpful information much later than I did, in the wee hours of the following morning. They would not have known if I hadn’t called around and asked them a question. Missing that email would have resulted in an opportunity cost never to be repaid. This is who we are!

It is obvious that most do not think about economic costs in the way they do financial costs. The latter is evident: you either do not earn it or you spend it— in some cases, too much. That’s financial cost and loss. But economic costs and losses account for those, in addition to the money you did not make because you did not have the opportunity to do so. It’s easy to incur economic losses when something takes too long to do. Ironically, economic losses worsen reputations and dampen economic growth with an intensity that is not witnessed with financial losses alone.

A significant portion of untapped economic growth is lost when government units, departments, and ministries do not answer the phone. Even more disappears when a callous approach is encouraged and adopted towards customer concerns. It’s never surprising how an expectation becomes an annoyance within a generation. Younger folks are more willing to opt out of what does not serve them. In the Barbados context, this is concerning. Everyone knows that the private sector has similar issues, but there is competition within it in most cases, along with the fact that labour is not as retainable. Government here is larger, as a percentage of the economy, than anywhere else in CARICOM. Again, take from it what you will. This is who we are!

I was reminded of this connection over the Christmas holiday and last week. I imported some parts for my vehicle from various places around the globe, each parcel arriving at different times during that timeframe. I used courier services to bypass the well-documented physical and labour bottlenecks at the Bridgetown Port. It was more expensive for me to do so, but I needed the parts with haste, resolving to pay the premium. It took an average of four business days for my parts to be cleared. They were neither heavy nor high-value. But I am aware of the change brought about by the use of the ASYCUDA World system our customs ecosystem uses in recent times.

I appreciate the need to visually inspect each item that falls into the “red category”, but with a lower-than-required customs-officer headcount, what the country is experiencing now is a case where technology has made labour more inefficient than it needs to be. I am not against the continued use of ASYCUDA World, but there is a problem. An investment in growing staff, larger salaries, and scanning or OCR equipment could ramp up economic growth. The same can be said for foreign exchange leakage. This is who we are!

I am one who believes that a government must deal with the minutiae as well as tackle larger socioeconomic and legal issues. This government has been rightly focused on the latter, but I am afraid it tends to run too reactively to the former. Incremental changes—like those I suggested—can make for sustainable growth in the future. It just seems that these earn focus in the run-up to elections. Funnily, I see another rationale for this, as sad as it may be. Did you all know that there is a 58 per cent chance that elections are called in Barbados a year after low or negative economic growth? This is who we are!