Bring in the Auditor General

While the crowd at Tammany on Gower are fighting over the recent firing of an internal auditor, they are missing a fairly obvious solution to the problem of ensuring that the City's books are well-watched:  let John Noseworthy have a look at them.

The City of St. John's has been run for far too long as a closed shop without much in the way of public oversight or scrutiny.  The current council - every single one of them - has yet to demonstrate the slightest concern for transparency and accountability particularly when it comes to the way city council spends public money. 

Sure there has been plenty of talk, especially from Ron Ellsworth.  But Ellsworth's already shown himself to be good at talk, but not much when it comes to the action of disclosure.  Heck, when confronted with a simple question about a political poll he'd commissioned, Ellsworth couldn't figure out whether to fib or fess up.  So he did both, first fibbing and then confessing he was behind it.

Talk is cheap. 

If Ellsworth and his cronies at ToG want to earn public confidence, they'd start by letting John Noseworthy audit the city books. 

At the same time, since they've made such a public spectacle of the internal auditor, it is incumbent on city officials to disclose the details of what went on. They will howl at the prospect and try and find every legal means to keep the whole mess under wraps, but the whole episode stinks to high heavens.

A little sunlight will help disinfect the place.

Something says, though, the council and senior officials will be doing everything possible to put up blinds, all the while talking a good game about the benefits of solar energy.

It's what city council does.

-srbp-

Doing nothing to save the national emblem

A woodland caribou population in serious trouble. The overall drop is from over 90,000 animals to just under 40,000 in a little over a decade. Some herds are at a tiny fraction of their numbers a few years ago.

The fairly obvious reason: an increase in predation - especially from invading coyotes which are not native to the island - and other pressures from things like human development. Those reasons , especially the predation one, are acknowledged in the news releases describing government's response:

$15.3 million.

Five years.

To develop a strategy - that can be implemented after the situation is five years further developed - to figure out.

Not we have a strategy or that it will take us a few weeks or months since we have already been studying this, but rather we will now study the problem to confirm there is a problem and then tell you what we will do.

Five years from now.

And that's in addition to two years and $3.7 million to study the decline already.

If the same rate of decline obtains, there will be something like 20,000 or fewer caribou left by the time they finish the study.

At that point the Do Nothings will probably announce a study to determine if the study that was just concluded actually had any impact or if things just kept getting worse on their own.

And according to the news release continuing to study rather than studying and then acting is part of their "strategy".

Strategy for what?

Doing Nothing, evidently.

And it's not like that should be a surprise.

Just remember the throne speech from a few years ago telling us what the Do Nothing philosophy was all about: and there shall be plans and plans for plans and plans to integrate the planning for plans.

The Do Nothing Department in a Do Nothing Administration

in American politics, there used to be the Know Nothings.

They were a group of native-born Americans who had a problem with immigrants yet whenever anyone asked a member of the group about it, he'd claim that he "knew nothing" at all.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we should call the current administration a Do Nothing government.

You see, in 2004 a provincial government task force laid out a plan to deal with the problem of hospital-related infections. That's when you go to hospital and get sick from a bug you picked up in the place where you went to get better in the first place.

Anyway, it is now 2008.

Four, maybe five years later depending on how you count it.

The Auditor General released a report this week noting that not only does the province have no freakin' idea how many infections are caused by hospital infections or nor how many deaths come from those infections, but also that there are a raft of problems with hospital sterilization techniques and cleaning procedures.

That's pretty much what your grandmother taught you about disease prevention: wash your hands. Oh yeah, and boil things to make them sterile.

And the hospitals aren't quite getting it yet. But anyway, someone gave them a plan.

In 2004.

So, in response, health minister Ross Wiseman promises that by 2009 - that is 12 months from now and definitely five years AFTER the plan was laid out - there will be "significant progress" made on a "comprehensive, provincewide infection control program."

Uh huh.

And we are supposed to believe this from a guy whose department is embroiled in controversies of one form or another.

Like the breast cancer one.

Or the one also revealed this week where the health boards created in 2004 that were supposed to save money are actually costing more money.

And we are supposed to believe a guy who just by pure coincidence scheduled his media availability to coincide with one being held by his colleague minister talking about the InfoSec breach.

Flying wingman for a guy who is himself trying to obscure the facts of a very serious political and legal problem for government is not a way to enhance your credibility.

But then again, speaking of Jerome, this is a government where things explode, fail, fall-apart or collapse based on government inaction over a long period of time and the standard government response is that a "plan is in the works", that this is "a priority of government" and that "all is well."

These cabinet ministers seem to spend too much time torquing and talking to actually accomplish anything real.

Around these parts, they used to be the serial government: one thing after another.

But all this talking and lack of action is actually part of a bigger problem: this is a Do Nothing Administration.

-srbp-

Related:

- Serial government and Labrador

- "and there shall be plans, and planning for plans, and plans to co-ordinate the plans of the planning for plans..."