Cabinet Approves Cleanup of Corrupt Lands Ministry…

Sharon Ramclam

But while Barrow isn’t paying any attention to the IMF, he’s paying plenty to the hotbed of corruption in his own front yard. So much so that Cabinet has approved a proposal for big changes submitted by C.E.O. Sharon Ramclam and Commissioner of Lands Wilbert Vallejos. Those two senior officers have tag-teamed to come up with a plan to clean out the ministry on two fronts – efficiency of service and sticky fingers syndrome. It includes everything from new security cameras and protocols to new staff which won’t be protected by the Public Service. Today, Ramclam gave us an outline of what’s planned.

Sharon Ramclam, C.E.O., Ministry of Natural Resources

“The matters at the Lands Department in the Ministry are very deep and wide as I mentioned before. It is something that we should have done or at least addressed a long time and it is now a collective effort that is involved in this undertaking. We’ve engaged very intensely the private sector, the various stakeholder groups that are involved in doing day to day transactions with the department. We’ve gathered their inputs and turned it around into a proposal that we think will tackle some of the core issues: customer service is severely lacking at the department…people have to wait long to do basic transactions and the culture that has been in practice over the years; that just didn’t happen overnight. This whole culture of public officers not wanting to do their jobs in a timely manner is their job in a timely manner is there from timing memorial. So addressing that will at least show that we are tackling it at the core.  A lot of the issues are related to HR; just the matter dealing with public service and public officers. We have actively pursued and engaged the Ministry of Public Service in this matter. As you noted, the proposal was taken all the way to cabinet again because it has to be an inclusive process. We have been looking at…what we outlined today are some of the immediate steps that will be taken to shed, in a nutshell, more clarity and on the fact that people have to be held accountable for their work and for their part in the processes involved. But also too that land is everybody’s business and so land management should be everybody’s business. And that is the approach that we are taking. These actions that we have outlined: things like expanding our security system to make sure that all the offices countrywide is equipped, equipping the staffing complement with customer-service oriented personnel that is not within the public service; putting in place auditors that report directly to my office that monitors the workforce and that kind of thing are details that will take some time in terms of integrating them into the system. But on the broader landscape, policy reforms are necessary. Procedural matters that has to be clarified: how we deal with files, how we safeguard files, how we transport files…all of those things are being looked at. Working out roles and responsibilities of the various land officers are also important. And essentially supervising staff; I mean holding supervisors accountable for their role in the whole accountability system.”