Blog: Leadership in critical Pass

From observations made at long distance and reported feedback, the PM adopts a non-interventionist approach of a leader to one he has trusted. He judges in all his wisdom that a particular individual has the profile for a post and can assume leadership. If the nominee can safeguard the interests of the party and champion the cause of the public consumer, he is allowed to do his job undisturbed.

The fouling of a task will have repercussions for the party, society and the nominee is chastised by being put away. The leader of the parastatal body must have learnt the lesson of good governance and will be accountable to the public through the media. On exceptional occasions when the nominee is in dire straits, depending on the credibility of his defence, he is spared by the PM. But there are cases where the guilt of the suspected leader has been beyond relief and in these cases he has had to step down.

What is happening to our parastatal bodies? Have they become the haven of the privileged because they have proved to be loyal to the party?

Does the price of loyalty have to be paid by an irreversible faith in the chairman or executive director whatever his flaws may be. There are parastatal bodies where the chairman of the board is so invasive that he wants to eclipse the director, reducing him to inferiority, sapping his authority, opposing him invariably with the help of other board members incapable of taking independent decisions and born to be blind yesmen. There is an absence of character, self-respect and personal dignity in many nominees who appear respectable by their educational status, but are weak as individuals.

They lack the moral strength to go beyond the cheap stunts of a bloated ego. Shouldn't loyalty be severely sanctioned if the loyal nominee makes an abuse of his position to violate the principles of good governance? Loyalty cannot be a permanent investment for annual dividends to the end of one's life.

The fate of the common man is affected by the wrong behaviour of political nominees in high places. The political masters of nominees have to be responsible benefactors. A thorough profile analysis of the incumbent is essential for selection. But the actions of both chairman and executive director must be monitored. Should we have waited for casinos to register a deficit to the tune of Rs 100 million to take action? Who approves the decisions of the board? Is there no authority above the board?

It is obvious that once ministers have approved of  board membership they wash their hands of the parastatal because they are too busy with their own ministerial activities.

The Mauritius Family Planning unit has been dismantled because it does not obtain financing from the mother authority. Both chairperson and director are engaged in an epic struggle for one upmanship and no one seems to pay attention to the harm done to public service.

Should an organisation crash through the reckless management of the board and director for us to take action? Even loyalty which tarnishes the name of the political master must be chastised even before harm is done. Political affiliation gives unlimited freedom to the nominee and it is the people who suffer.

It is sheer hypocrisy to use an anti-corruption rhetoric at public level while loyalty, a non-meritocratic criterion, becomes the only factor that distinguishes one from another. The skills, the knowledge and the character one has may surpass the exchange value of another's loyalty and yet it seems that party interests prevail over national interests. Cronies are raised into icons of merit and they generate webs of a personal empire into which people of the same colour, caste and faith are favoured and adulated.

Very few leaders have emerged in our parastatals. The CWA has been left worse than it was. There are rumbles of weak leadership at the CEB. We no longer hear of the MCA nor of the Open University it was supposed to be converted into. In fact, most of our parastatals are sick with intestinal hostilities and corrosive ego games.

A fatalistic sense of doom prevails over these institutions because too often vision and institutional objectives give way to the megalomania of oversized egos in those who are at the helm.