A small article in Monday’s The Fiji Times caught my attention.
It was headlined Stall approvals to come from CEOs, says Mrs Kumar.
Local Government Minister Premila Kumar was in Lautoka speaking to its special administrators and the chief executive officer.
This seems to have been a media event.
Perhaps, it was Mrs Kumar’s turn last week to be the “profile” minister, on tour and looking busy for the cameras.
The Prime Minister, the Agriculture Minister, the Employment Minister and the Social Welfare Minister seem to do this work in shifts (the Education Minister also attracts headlines, but these appear to be unplanned).
Anyway, it seems that Lautoka market has a “market master” (in these days of secular schools, true democracy, rights for all, “we’re all Fijians now”, etc, I am sure this is meant to be a gender-neutral term).
From the job title, I would assume that the market master (he or she) is paid generally to organise Lautoka market activities and ensure everything works well.
Not so fast, says the minister.
“Market masters have no authority to give stall approvals,” the minister reportedly told the meeting.
All stall approvals “should be given by council chief executive officers, not by market masters”.
Furthermore, she said, vendors must be “profiled”.
“We must know our vendors and should know details about what they sell so we could know how well we would be able to assist them,” she said.
She then finished with the obligatory ministerial homily demanding “action on the ground”.
Everyone must be “working together for the betterment of our community”, etc.
Challenging times
These appear to be challenging times for our local governments.
In 2007, the then Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) Commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama got rid of elected town and city councillors saying “they are all corrupt and inefficient”.
Thirteen years on, by news media accounts, Nasinu has no money and is mired in corruption allegations and the Auditor-General wants to know how someone who paid off Rakiraki’s $155,000 in debts got the $5 million contract to build its new market.
The former heads of Savusavu and Labasa are reported to be “under the radar” of the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (this was reported by the Fiji Sun, so therefore it must be right).
Lautoka, of course, has its notorious swimming pool project.
The Fiji Times reported in June that the planned $F2m cost from four years ago has now ballooned to F$12.6m while the council hunts for a new contractor to finish it.
One would have thought that the Lautoka City Council CEO would have quite a lot on his plate. Developing a vision for the city perhaps.
Planning for how to respond to the economic downturn. Maybe looking for new ways to shrink Shirley Park.
But apparently no. He is going to be busy allocating market stalls and “profiling” market vendors.
Because this job is too complex for the market master to do.
He must also know what they are selling. Presumably this is to ensure that there is price equilibrium for bhaji and no one has a monopoly on English cabbages.
Perhaps the minister should take a hint from what the place is called – a “market”.
The people who buy and sell there generally work these things out as they go.
Control-freakery
It’s hard to understand the mentality which drives this sort of control-freakery.
Reading The Fiji Times article, the objective seems to be to carefully monitor vendors who have (or who might cunningly obtain) more than one market stall.
Perhaps there have been problems with past market masters (like “past governments” – it’s always their fault, after all).
Maybe “past market masters” have played favourites or did not allocate stalls fairly.
Now, in most well-run organisations, if this was the problem you would deal with it at source. You would set up a policy for the market master.
He (sorry, or she, but I believe it’s a he) would be given some guidelines, some rules, and would apply them.
The market master would then report regularly to his supervisor.
If people had complaints, they could take the complaints to the supervisor; and the market master would be answerable.
The word for this (well-used by our government over the last decade) is “accountability”.
But this government’s answer to every problem, real or imagined, is not to try to improve the system that is already there. Instead, you pass the problem up the chain of command.
This seems to happen in every government department. Suddenly the permanent secretaries – or even the ministers themselves – have to approve even the smallest thing.
At the Education Ministry, if a person wants to visit a school, the permanent secretary herself must authorise it (well, for Opposition parliamentarians anyway).
Indeed, it seems that there are even ministers who have to pass their problems up the chain to other ministers.
Presumably, this is why, for the simplest of decisions and applications in Government departments, nothing happens for weeks or months, if at all.
Which of course explains why ministers have to tour the country demanding “action on the ground” and urging civil servants to be more efficient.
Council elections?
As for the Local Government Minister herself, why is she dictating to the Lautoka City Council who allocates the stalls at its market?
Doesn’t she have more important things to do? Like “reform of the Local Government Act”?
This reform, she has said (parroting the line of all local government ministers since 2006) must occur before elected councils can be allowed to represent the people of their town or city.
So far, “reform of the Local Government Act” has taken 13 years.
This seems to be a long time. It is all the more surprising since our highly efficient government can pass most laws under urgency in a few days.
In the last parliamentary session, the Government published seven Bills on Monday, allowed one hour debate on each Bill and voted them into law by Thursday.
What could be the reason for delaying local government elections?
Surely it is not the possibility that some of these ghastly opposition parties might win them? Then where would we all be, with other people in control of things?
But we live in a true democracy, so that could not possibly be the reason.
So perhaps it’s time for the Local Government Ministry to deliver some “action on the ground” for the betterment of our communities, and allow town and city council elections.
Then the representatives of Lautoka’s residents could decide how to allocate the stalls in the market.
* Richard Naidu is a vendor in the Suva legal services market. The views in this article are not necessarily those of The Fiji Times.
