Chasing the dots… Performance Fraud

THE political silly season approacheth. We will suffer prospectus onslaught where promises of action are made, achievements and failures magnified depending on which side you are on, personal and group attacks (verbal only I hope) are made and trenches of division will be dug.

The prospecti will all be about health, education and similar; all will promise standard panacea, improved service delivery, customer care, poverty reduction, performance and productivity improvement. Woo the voter; forget all after the elections; nothing new or Namibian. Sure Namibia does many things well but is sailing towards financial rocks as GRN avoids taking the necessary difficult decisions to improve performance and productivity.Compare the 2004-5 and 2009-10 funded labour figures against goods and services or capital expenditure; a very crude proxy measure of productivity. Equally compare average employee benefits by vote with especial reference to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). Space does not allow comparison tables but it is evident that more labour input is resulting in less benefit to the population especially when outsourced services (labour reductions!) and prestige buildings are removed from the equations!Average salary for OPM reveals anomalies; high inputs for low returns. Certainly increasing wages does not seem a route to productivity as suggested by a local economist! As for OPM…The Namibian, 15 May, gave thought food for three items. The letter on PMS (Performance Management System) showed insight to a farce conceived in the wake of the 1996/7 system which Cabinet rapidly shutdown as the ‘three notches for my friends’ evaluations exposed severe managerial incapacities, programme structural weakness (no relation to organisational performance) and was breaking the bank!PMS was conceptually discussed in late 1998 as a logical add-on to the now well established Namibian Performance Based Budgeting system handed over from OPM to the Ministry of Finance in 2004 (see MTEF budget document); the intent to provide linkage between organisational and people performance. Ten years later and many millions spent on trips to Malaysia, Germany, Canada and elsewhere, multiple workshops, consultants, action plan publications, trials and other extravagance, failure is admitted. Money down the drain. Yuk!Why? Partially, those responsible for the 1996/7 farce took over PMS. Failure rewarded, success viewed with suspicion? Those responsible for making people performance happen did not perform! The upbeat, in process, rhetoric and publicity surely little more than deception, or worse. The Auditor General should do a performance audit on this?The second item was the Electricity Control Board (ECB) where the Board Boss states that the ECB has done so well, contracts should be renewed! Really. Did he forget that Namibia nearly ran out of electricity last year following a massive generation capacity failure or that they failed to convince Cabinet of a need for realistic pricing! Only the economic downturn in South Africa saved us but look at their Mission Statement. How can it be said that the ECB did well? Or is it the Ministry’s fault! Get people who can do the job. Stop delusional management now.Finally Namfisa. A joke if it was not a reality is that several senior employees seem to have feathered their nests! Whose toes have been trodden on this time? Time will tell.Spending the people’s money for nothing is performance fraud and a most serious form of corruption? Administrative neglect, support of the incompetent and vilification of the honest and competent. Productivity and performance are measurable. Let’s do it and act on the results. Do we just talk the talk and do the walk; or act? Conscious waste of public funds is criminal.csmith@mweb.com.na