Out of sight, out of mind
Among the few satisfactions that public administration can provide a mayor or a minister, the inauguration of public works surely tops the list. The ribbon-cutting or the first shovelful of earth on a road or a hospital—symbols of the start of construction—are celebratory events: the obligatory speeches and photos accompanied by a musical band document these events for history. On the other hand, the optimal maintenance of the road or the hospital—that is, the good performance of the agencies responsible for ensuring that this infrastructure doesn't deteriorate—is never celebrated.
The worst enemies of these public goods are time and the indolence of governments. Time, because normal use inevitably leads to material deterioration. Indolence, because governments fail to perform the preventive and restorative tasks required for maintenance.
Of course, maintenance doesn't generate political gain. It's invisible. It's hidden from the public eye , because vehicles continue to circulate or the building remains standing, until the deterioration makes the road impassable and leaks, or a collapse, render the hospital inoperable. Only then will voices be raised demanding government action, especially if the deterioration leads to accidents and deaths. And just as those who inaugurated these works may have taken credit for it, adding points to their political careers, no one can be blamed for the deterioration: those responsible are always "previous governments" (anonymous and undifferentiated entities), who failed to make the investments in a timely manner or abandoned the necessary controls. The Cromañón fire or the Once train station tragedy remind us of this every time a new catastrophe shakes public opinion.
In all jurisdictions of our country's public administration , there are visible deficiencies in public infrastructure and government performance. This situation has been denounced for many years by specialists, NGOs, corporate organizations, and citizens themselves. But blindly applying the chainsaw, following the logic of "dead dog, dead rabies," does not solve the problem; it only makes it worse. And that is what could happen with the institutional sawing campaign undertaken by the current government.
I pointed out in these pages that the necessary prior institutional diagnosis requires the use of a microscope and a scalpel. The microscope, to gain an in-depth understanding of the public value of each state agency's output. The scalpel, to make the selective cuts resulting from the diagnosis. Other instruments must now be added: the telescope and the incubator. The telescope, to foresee future management needs; the incubator, to create a controlled environment for the development of human resources and work teams that will surely need to be incorporated as a result of the diagnosis. The chainsaw is too blunt a tool for the necessary institutional reconstruction required by the government apparatus.
Let's imagine the possible consequences of indiscriminate sawing . What would happen if Senasa stopped certifying the quality of exportable meat products, declaring them free of foot-and-mouth disease? If INTA (National Institute of Statistics and Census) abandoned its research and extension programs in genetic improvement, natural resource preservation, ecosystem services, or good farming practices; if ARCA (National Association of Agricultural Research and Statistics) stopped inspecting large taxpayers or failed to incorporate advances in artificial intelligence in detecting tax fraud; if investments in building classrooms, bathrooms, internet connections, or libraries in schools weren't made? The question could be repeated in the dozens of areas of state action, asking about the impacts of suspending as many public services, and the answer would be the same: "nothing" would happen. Nothing, at least, until next October's elections.
Of course, nothing visible to the public would happen . Among the things that would happen, we could list the budget savings that would allow the government to maintain a "zero" deficit, with the resulting political gains. Furthermore, little by little, multiple hard-to-form work teams in the public sector would be dismantled. Thousands of displaced former public employees would have to redirect their careers or consider migrating abroad. And almost imperceptibly, the statistics would begin to add up to more functional illiterates, worse health rates, fewer technological advances, and many more accidents, tax evaders, or poor people.
How to avoid this? First, by reorienting the transformation strategy toward a better state , rather than indiscriminately toward a smaller (or no) state. Less does not equal better. It is even possible that the final result of the alternative strategy will end up reducing the state apparatus. But it would be a different state, which experts have described as "necessary," "smart," "athletic," "sensible," "modest," "reinvented," or "catalytic." All these terms refer to a state whose management is based on the public value produced by each of its programs and agencies, but after analyzing and prioritizing the nature and scope of the demands or services required by citizens, the necessary staff, the resources and technologies needed, and the delivery options (centralized or decentralized, public, private, or mixed).
Ideally, according to the United Nations model of "good governance," such a state should be imbued with a professional ethos and be transparent, efficient, fair, equitable, democratic, strategically visionary, and accountable. No truly existing state possesses all these attributes, but it is always a question of degrees of closeness or distance from these ideals. In particular, it is important to highlight the last two: strategic vision and accountability.
Government after government, in the experience of Argentine public management , only the present, the day-to-day, has mattered. Having a strategic vision means incorporating the future into management, planning, scheduling, anticipating risks, and assessing contingencies. And being accountable also implies incorporating the past, looking back, evaluating results and impacts, and being accountable for the work carried out. Because public management should be a three-stage process. State investment, the maintenance of public works, the provision of services, and almost all governing activities require planning, monitoring, evaluation, and accountability, in addition to day-to-day management. A state that neither plans nor is accountable relies solely on chance, trial, and error. Only when unpredictability and lack of accountability make the disaster visible do citizens tend to kick the can down the road and make a new bet.
lanacion
