A PM working from home

EVER SINCE covid19, it has been the official position of the state that it is formulating a work-from-home policy. In fiscal 2023, $230 million was allocated for digitisation. Last year, Allyson West, then public administration minister, said a pilot project would probe the impact of remote work on productivity.

This is the changed world in which the rancour over the Prime Minister’s failure on May 5 to occupy Whitehall premises has erupted.

Mrs Persad-Bissessar has missed a golden opportunity.

When she first held office from 2010-2015, the idea of a PM operating from a private residence was novel. Forget Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. She came before.

Today, working from home is de rigueur. The private sector has embraced it. Assorted government departments allow it. The Third Report of the Joint Select Committee on Social Services and Public Administration in 2022 noted: “the majority of state entities surveyed reported that employees were able to work just as effectively.”

Instead of sending out her minister, Barry Padarath, to paint a dismal picture of the 120-year-old heritage site that has been the symbolic home of governance for decades, the new PM could have communicated more.

If she was working from home on Monday, as thousands of people in this country were, she should have shown that she was just like everyone else. The old politics of defaming the previous administration should have given way to the change of a leader embracing modernity.

Don’t get us wrong, there’s a lot about Whitehall’s state that gives us considerable pause.

It is no good to say, as Ms West has, that the building is sound “except for the basement.” That basement houses none other than the cabinet secretariat. There is, apparently, mould. Given that extreme weather has increased flooding at the Queen’s Park Savannah, it is also astonishing to learn that, notwithstanding a $32 million renovation, Udecott has not been more proactive in staving off disrepair.

And if Mr Padarath had not told the country about the problems that forced that agency, just six weeks ago, to engage a contractor, would we have known?

A prime minister is a prime minister. Unlike Parliament, the post-holder can hold meetings anywhere: Whitehall, St Clair, the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, even the Twin Towers in Port of Spain. Mrs Persad-Bissessar, in 2013, called a state of emergency while at home in Phillipine.

But, as Mr Padarath himself said this week of cabinet officials, “They can’t just be operating out of anywhere.” The country must be confident that the work of the state will be done and done securely, no matter where the PM sits. Mrs Persad-Bissessar should strongly give this clarification and assurance.