Come back to what?

A young St. Martiner in his final year of his studies abroad called his father to tell him he would like to return home to work. His father, a friend of mine, did not hesitate to ask him: “You want to come back home? Come back to what?”

I was perplexed by the question. Why would a father discourage his son from coming back home to contribute to the advancement of his island? But the quizzical look on my face vanished when he began to explain.

“Our politicians always saying how we lack capacity. What do they mean by that? We don’t have locals to fill this or that position in government. We don’t have lawyers to work in the Legal Affairs department, so a lot of stuff is held up. We don’t have professionals in finance; we don’t have engineers to run GEBE, we don’t have this, we don’t have that…”

I caught his drift immediately. Although I detected frustration in his voice, he was not resentful. He truly believed he was looking out for his son. And I get that. But while we focus on the plight of the individual and their family, there is a larger issue that needs to be addressed structurally.

Lack of capacity?

The first question that comes to mind is this: do we really lack capacity as is often trumpeted by our political leaders?

Let’s take a look at the legal profession. The question surely cannot be one of lack of capacity. We have many lawyers, many more than we had a generation ago. I think we should actually be asking ourselves why do the lawyers we have right now prefer to go into private practice rather than work for government as civil servants.

Similarly, when we look at the banking sector, it would seem that we have a good number of young local professionals there who would rather work in the private sector than work for government. So, on the surface, at least, it would seem that it is not a lack of “capacity” but perhaps the conditions of service (salaries, other emoluments) that is turning our professionals away from government.

And if indeed it is true that we lack capacity, this shortage did not happen overnight: it has been growing for decades. Why? After all, we have been sending hundreds of young St. Martin students away to study. Over the last couple of decades, they should number in the thousands. Where are they? What happened to them?

St. Martin is not ready yet

Here is where my friend’s admonition to his son becomes relevant. St. Martin does not value its sons and daughters with education, he contended and rattled off a number of examples of sons and daughters of the soil who returned home only to face gigantic obstacles in trying to exercise their professions.

“Can you imagine we bring doctors from all over the world to work in our hospital. We put them up in fancy accommodation with swimming pool, pay their airline tickets- wife, children and dogs - but when our own doctors return home they can’t practice because of all kinds of excuses- they ain’t study in Holland and what not.

“Those of them who are grudgingly given a job, have to live with their parents for a long while. They are frustrated until they decide to pack up and go back to where they came from. There at least they are guaranteed a good salary and better benefits. So, I ask again: come back to what? It doesn’t make sense. St. Martin is not ready.”

How does one respond to such a mouthful?

The failed counterpart policy

I am reminded that even the “counterpart policy” government introduced years back has been a monumental failure which apparently has not been officially declared as such. The idea was that for certain key management positions where foreigners are employed, there would be a local counterpart who would understudy them and potentially replace them after a few years. However, generally, this has not worked out well. The feeling persists among several local families that government prefers foreigners to its own people for various reasons, not least among them being political, especially if the family is viewed as “opposition.”

Such feelings, though difficult to explain with empirical evidence, are nevertheless real and must be taken into serious consideration. Are we really sabotaging our own local professionals for political reasons?

We invest millions of tax payers dollars in their education through study financing and yet complain that we lack capacity? What is actually the return on our investment? Why are many of our qualified professionals forced to ply their trade abroad while foreigners are employed in positions they should be occupying here at home?

I can’t answer all these questions but at least I can pose them in the hope that we can have an honest, dispassionate and respectful discussion about the issue with a view to finding viable and sustainable solutions to the problem.

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