Shine a light on problem procedures

(The Star) – THE kerfuffle over irregularities in scholarship awards by the Public Service Department (PSD) continues to wend its way through the public consciousness.

There should be no doubt about the very pressing and public interest nature of these irregularities. At stake are not just issues of news interest but also public welfare and the national interest.

Before closure can be achieved, there must be transparency about the whole selection process. Vital questions include: How many irregularities have there been, why did they arise, how deep do they go, when did they all begin and who are involved?

The misallocation of scholarships has revealed official procedures as haphazard, inconsistent and incongruous or wholly incompatible with stated official policy.

The seriousness of the implications cannot be underestimated because of their negative impact on both national human resource capacity and the nation’s administrative credibility.

As more missteps are revealed, there is more for those responsible to answer for. Consequently, more issues have surfaced.

Among these is the requirement for students who have qualified and been selected to undergo an interview. If they have already been deemed suitable and deserving, why extend the bureaucratic process when the PSD’s own human resources can be more meaningfully applied elsewhere?

Also, at least 66 deserving students did not get the course they had chosen and another 102 who had applied for degree courses were given diploma courses instead. Full and satisfactory explanations are needed for such glaring discrepancies.

Surely such procedures should constantly be streamlined and minimised instead of devising additional obstacles to impede and disable our most promising young people?

Students who have worked hard and done well should be rewarded accordingly, particularly by investing in the nation’s productive capacities. Nobody should work to disappoint or discourage promising young talent.

A risky multiplier effect is also at work, with each succeeding generation seeing what the generation before has had to go through, and reacting pre-emptively.

Young people can see that the conduct of such bureaucratic procedures so far is typical of a chronic Third World country.

A spring-cleaning of sorts is thus in order. But rather than sweep anything under the carpet, it is time to check around the floorboards and hang out any problem rug to dry, then beating it soundly.