Our article by Ekkehardt Roth of 9th January 2011 seems to have sparked a number of persons to respond on the ICT forum CIVIC. One responder shares his views with us.

By Russell Williams

I have had the pleasure of working with Ekkehardt on a number of occasions over the years, and I think most who have would, to borrow another colleague’s phrase, consider him to be a “friend and relative”, despite his German roots and pigmentation.

I read his original post and deliberately waited before commenting to see what response it would draw. Not surprisingly many, if not all were supportive and echoed his astute assessment of the situation. My only surprise was why this ground swell of opinion had not been ventilated before! Perhaps it is precisely because he’s not from the Caribbean where one can be marginalized, vilified and denied the right to work and support one’s family, for so clearly articulating one’s position that we are dependent on people like Ekke to state the obvious for us.

But what good does it serve our nations and societies if we cannot reflect on the views of others and determine whether there is any merit in their ideas and either accept or reject them, without seeking to some retribution? How are we to develop?

I like many other Caribbean nationals have been questioned by ‘outside’ consultants referred by our respective government officials to provide content for reports and studies, yet we’re not deemed qualified or good enough to be contracted or otherwise paid for our ideas and input.

To the subject matter, the issue can be summed up simply by the lack of accountability. Who was mandated to implement any one or more of these studies, and were they given the means to implement them? Were they successful in implementing them or not and why? Have these strategies been shared? Have those who were charged with implementation shared their experiences – the successes and failures? Typically, there are a lot of discussions, consultations and venting sessions but how much actual collaboration and implementation actually takes place?

I’ve been assigned to projects where a different person represents a country or department at every meeting or briefing so how can the project effectively move forward or in any way benefit that department or country? Another scenario is that persons sent to attend an event whether in country or out of state are unqualified to attend and make no contribution to the debate and certainly are unlikely to return to their country or department to contribute anything of value.

We see donor funds for projects intended to stimulate local economic diversification and broaden IT based activity, used to engage overseas facilitators to deliver training. So we have a situation where the local private sector – which is supposed to be the engine of growth – denied the opportunity to earn money as the facilitator and then is excluded from training that may make them more efficient or competitive.

In summation it’s high time that the local practitioners are given the opportunity, recognition and support needed to advance the process and change the landscape.

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