Build, build, build institutions
ROBERT SIY
The daily suffering of our commuters, the congestion in our cities, and the inefficient movement of goods are tied ultimately to weaknesses in our institutions.
In the Department of Transportation (DOTr), for example, what’s the adequacy, quality and resilience of its human capital?
Improving mobility in our cities will require new infrastructure and better services. This is what DOTr is focused on. But DOTr should not lose sight of a higher order priority—that of bolstering its own technical and managerial capacity—so that appropriate policies and regulation are formulated, projects can be planned and implemented effectively, and results are sustained.
What are some of the institutional weaknesses that threaten DOTr’s ambitions and results?
First is the lack of stability in DOTr’s management. Among the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries of DOTr, only a few are considered “career” officers with security of tenure.
With every new administration, nearly the entire DOTr leadership is replaced, discarding the accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience. New appointees then start over by first learning what the job entails. In contrast to DOTr’s transitory management, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has a deep bench of “career” senior officials that provide organizational stability and policy continuity, even with changes at the very top.
Another issue is the prevalence of contractual positions in DOTr. If we consider the staff involved in DOTr’s key initiatives and projects, what percentage are regular or organic staff and what percentage are job order, project-based or “contract of service” staff, without security of tenure?
Because there are limited number of regular positions in DOTr for engineers, transport planners, economists, IT experts, and other technical specialists, DOTr’s recourse is to use six-month, renewable contracts to hire additional warm bodies.
It’s heartening to know that DOTr is working to build internal capability for certain key functions. With assistance from Japan, DOTr is in the process of establishing a Railway Institute.
In parallel, many new recruits are undergoing training sessions on railway planning, construction and operations, conducted by consultants of the Australian Government and the Asian Development Bank. These are highly laudable initiatives. But will the trainees, most of whom are on job-order contracts, remain with DOTr for the longer term?
The poor retention rate of staff without regular appointments is definitely an issue. If one’s contract is short-term, with little hope of career advancement, and with limited access to training and personal development opportunities, the individual will leave as soon as an attractive option comes along.
For DOTr to have adequate and stable internal capacity that will deliver results and survive changes in administrations, what needs to be done?
DOTr needs to be a much larger organization. It has a huge mandate covering aviation, maritime, railways, road transport, and non-motorized transport. It needs to be the center of expertise in each of these sub-sectors.
In similarly-sized countries, the equivalent transport ministry has a staff of several thousand people, so that specialized sub-sector teams, each with several hundred staff, are there to develop the strategic vision, handle specific projects, monitor sector performance and formulate sound policies.
DOTr has fewer than five hundred regular employees, and the vast majority of DOTr’s regular staff are in administrative and non-technical positions. There are only a handful of engineers in each sub-sector (aviation, maritime, rail, etc.) that are regular employees of the agency.
With massive projects and transformative programs at stake, plus pressure to accelerate implementation, DOTr needs to grow significantly in size, doubling or tripling its current staff complement.
DOTr needs to have large teams working on each project, rather than a few overloaded project officers, each with several projects. It should not be shy to ask for major increases in staff numbers.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) recognizes that absorptive capacity and budget execution depend on having sufficient human resources.
DOTr’s long-pending rationalization plan needs to be acted on as soon as possible, so that new technical and managerial positions can be authorized. This provides an opportunity for DOTr to restructure, create new units, and bring in new skills, creativity, and passion.
There’s no shortage of interest among new graduates and young professionals to work in DOTr but they hope to join an organization that will offer them a fulfilling career, professional growth, new knowledge, and the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the country’s development.
At the same time, DOTr can’t be expected to manage all transportation concerns for an entire country. Local government units (LGUs) have to play a leading role in transport planning and service delivery in their own localities.
In most countries, metropolitan and city governments are responsible for organizing and coordinating transportation services in their areas. The role of the national government is to empower and capacitate LGUs and guide them with sound policy and regulation.
In this regard, DOTr needs a dedicated team that will work with local governments to build LGU skills in transport planning and management.
And it goes without saying that the private sector needs to be involved in a big way—in the planning and implementation of projects, and ultimately as service providers.
But a sound partnership requires that DOTr possess the ability to guide, support, facilitate, monitor, and regulate private sector inputs. If DOTr can’t play this role, the result will be the same as the fragmented, uncoordinated and deficient transport services that we experience today.
Down the road, a merger of DOTr and DPWH could be considered. Transport infrastructure and services would be more easily coordinated if the functions of DPWH and DOTr were under the same organization.
DPWH has often viewed its role as improving the road network to accommodate a larger number of private motor vehicles to the detriment of pedestrians and public transport users. DOTr is focused on improving public transport and mobility, but lacks the depth of technical capacity and resources that DPWH possesses. A merger of the two agencies can create synergies and provide stronger institutional foundation to deliver mobility solutions.
Because of the significance of the transport sector in our daily lives, one aspiration should be for Government to attract and retain the best expertise to prepare the long-term vision, strategy and policies for the sector.
The Korea Transport Institute (KOTI) may be a good model in this regard. KOTI has a full-time staff of over 300 experts (100 with Ph.Ds). Its role is to prepare transport master plans, extract best practices, formulate policies, share knowledge, and develop innovative, cutting-edge approaches to address evolving needs.
Because of the intellectual leadership and credibility of its experts, KOTI’s work promotes the continuity of transport plans and strategies, despite changes in administrations.
The Philippines now spends over 500 billion pesos yearly for transportation development—counting only the budgets of DPWH and DOTr. Shouldn’t we be allocating at least one percent of this amount to build the human capital needed to plan, implement and sustain improvements in the transport sector?
Without this basic investment in our institutions and people, all our other investments in transportation development are at risk.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate. He can be reached at mobilitymatters.ph@yahoo.com or followed on Twitter @RobertRsiy
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