Transparency and Delivery, the twain must meet!

What exactly is transparency? Transparency, as I understand, for a government organization dealing with public funds, or perhaps even in responsible business enterprises, is a culture of honesty and openness. But transparency sans accountability and delivery is meaningless; there is an equally important flip side and that is, the obligation to deliver. If use of public money must be done in a transparent manner, then it is also necessary that the purpose for which this money is being utilized is served well.

It is easy to be transparent as long as it is divorced from delivery. It is also, perhaps, easier to deliver if there was no pressure of transparency. Merit lies in delivering while being transparent. In general, transparency is the quality of being easily seen through. A secondary connotation also refers to complete predictability, i.e., the output is entirely predictable from knowing the input. Since constructive and effective ordering of stores is not a computer game, if you follow such blind transparency, it is liable to be misused by incapable suppliers.

Why am I bringing this subject? Simply because a whole lot of idle people would declare that the way we went about ordering and executing the Train 18 project was not very transparent. Well, it is neither my intent nor place to defend individual cases but I would attempt to give generic examples here and let the readers decide for themselves.

Let us think of a hypothetical case. There is a product X required to be developed, manufactured, tested and validated, delivered and then installed in Y unit of time at an estimated price Z.

Our collective experience and pre-bid analyses have shown that,

Firm A can develop and deliver as per requirement but at a price 1.05 Z.

Firm B can develop and deliver as per requirement but only in time 1.5 Y and at a price 1.25 Z.

Firm C can develop and deliver but the quality is suspect, time line is likely to be more than 2 Y at a price 0.95 Z; this firm is likely to commit to the required time line. But the likely outcome: they would default. 

Firm D claims they can develop, they appear just about capable on paper but their credentials are not established, the time line is likely to be 2.5 Y at a price 0.9 Z; they are likely to commit to any time line clearly detached from reality and later renege on it citing some reason or the other.

What would a typical Mr.Transparent in a government organization in which there is no premium on performance and delivery do? He would, in spite of having a good insight into the likely scenario with all these firms, call open bids and order bulk quantities on either firm C or D and offer the same price to A as well; this would waste unnecessary time. If firm A accepts the order, there would be some delivery from them with the time line burst to some extent. Part of the project would be delivered while firms C and D would keep wavering and delaying. If A does not accept the order, the project is fired. At the same time, knowing that both firms C and D would not meet the time line, Mr. Transparency may go for another bid process and land in the same mess once again. Transparency would have been served well but the delivery would have been given a go by. What price such transparency?

A more responsible executive would, in the above scenario, write down strong eligibility criteria in the bid schedule and also place a clear preference for time line of delivery. Seeing this eligibility criteria, which would obviously exclude some wannabe firms, is likely to result in public complaints with insinuations that firm A is being favoured. If the executives concerned are firm, they would place a large bulk order on firm A at a price between Z and 1.05 Z, try to persuade firm B to take a bulk but smaller order at this price and perhaps assign a small order to firm C or D or both. The requirement of transparency would be met, with everyone getting an opportunity to develop the product. There would be no ground for any illegitimate complaint. On the other hand, if the executives develop cold feet, baulk at the brink and dilute the eligibility criteria, the project would again go the way of Mr. Transparency.

But if transparency and performance were the two main pillars of good governance, the executive involved must call a spade a spade, commit to the best case scenario for development, invite firm A for negotiation, bring them down to the expected price level and order on them without wasting any time in a long drawn bidding process; having secured that, the option of trying to persuade firm B to take an order and perhaps even small order on firm C or D or both would be still be open as a parallel exercise. The chances of the project getting delivered in the intended time line, or even quicker, would be very bright in this scenario.

All the three actions, including the last one, do not violate the Public Procurement Policy and General Financial Rules of Government of India. But the onus of choosing a course lies on the decision-maker. What with fear of complaints and Vigilance and so on, government executives do not tend to go for the aggressive course of action and let delivery go boil its head.

One of the railway factories had to order certain equipment and they made an unrealistic provision for delivery time line under pressure from Board. Firms of the category A & B protested that the time line specified was impossible to achieve but to no avail and therefore they decided not to bid at all. The order was placed on firms C and D and the delivery is yet to begin after passage of more than 6 Y time. The project is fired, there is some criticism but the executives go about their routine unscathed.

There is another factory which has been patting itself on the back for calling large bids. Very good, if they have ambitions to reach somewhere. But their bids are called from a cocooned environment; the kind of analysis of firms, like the example given above, is totally absent as the officers lack the guts to interact with prospective bidders. The charade of propriety has blinded them so much that there is no absolutely no discussion with major players before preparing the bid documents. The upshot is that firms of the category A & B or similarly capable ones do not bid at all and this factory is now an expert in calling bids without any ordering to show for!

The implication of transparency in governance is that all of an organization’s actions should be scrupulous enough to bear public scrutiny. But should public scrutiny be limited to only some showman transparency, without any premium on attainment? Unfortunately, this is the case, more often than not, in our country. It is so frequently a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, that Macbeth perhaps spoke it for us in India, only notionally responsible for good governance.

At personal risk, we at ICF tried to follow the second and the third routes. Calling bids only to appear transparent and destroying the chances of delivery was not acceptable. I must say that most of the officers, including the key Stores and Finance officers, in the team understood this and worked in a manner which spoke of transparency with a clear sense of responsibility towards performance. Knowing what is right is one thing, standing up to it is another. Most officers in ICF stood up to what was right.

Classic examples of doing something and undoing it at the same time abound in government set ups and indeed other organizations as well. As individuals, we frequently experience that downer feeling at the end of day that you did not spend your time more productively; a sense that you had been working tirelessly hard but had got very little done. There is a big difference between being busy and being productive. Sounds simple but don’t we all wonder so all the time? Organizations comprise of people and they must introspect on this issue frequently at individual as well collective levels. If they did, situations like the fruitless tendering processes I described would be gradually got rid of.

I beg pardon of Firaq, for using this beautiful piece of poetry in a negative sense, if he were alive, he would drag me over the coals:

Jinhein manzilon ki na fikr thi, jinhein chalte rehane se kaam tha,

Mile  aise  bhi  kai  qaafiley,  tere   gham  ki  raah-e-daraaz   mein

(Those that had no worry about the destination and their only job was to keep moving, I met many such caravans too in this long sorrowful path. )

An aside. These procurement cases are sensitive to begin with and then they involve personalities; although a chronicler must be honest and transparent but can a small time teller like me really afford to be so? I leave the readers with this thought and my open declaration of lack of candour at the altar of expedience; resorting to Firaq once again with a couplet from the same ghazal:

Mere sher aainakhane mein,  teri beshumar adaaon ke,

Magar aisi bhi hai koi ada, jo rahegi seena-e-raaz mein

(My poetry mirrors your myriad coquetry and countless postures but there are some dalliances which must remain buried in the secret recesses of my heart.)

Honesty, integrity and probity! Big words but in our practical world, particularly in government, do we have that exemplar leader? One who has never misused official machinery, let alone enjoying any consideration of any kind from any one with whom he or she has official dealing? One who does not go beyond accepting occasional hospitality? Or let’s say, one who stops short of accepting direct monetary benefits but has no qualms in accepting illegal gratification as gifts? Or one who goes about his work with complete honesty but having done so does not mind getting compensated for it by the beneficiary? Or the absolute government official who attaches a price tag to every official work that he does or does not do, as the case may be? I can go on and on and also build convenient rational around all these types. 

To put the issue in perspective, in my entire service life of close to forty years, I came across only three completely honest officers; officers who would just not budge from the straight path. Officers of the type who, if use of official car was not allowed for going to office, would ride a bicycle to work. Officers who would not do any personal work when on duty to another town. Officers who would never use an underling for any personal work. Absolute sticklers. It was their conviction and they handled it to the last word. Let’s give it to them; they are the only ones who have the right to wear their honesty on their sleeve. I salute them for I could never be like them.

What about the rest? Everyone devises his or her own limits of convenience and conscience and may pretend to be more honest than those lower down in the value-chain of honesty. It is actually a game of mere purport without much benefit to the organization; whether the ‘price tag’ fellow flourishes more or less than the ‘only hospitality’ fellow does not mean much to the organization. What matters much more is which one delivers more and better. Yes! As a leader I would rather have a more dishonest doer than a less dishonest shirker. Only one caveat. There has to be some limit. If someone’s dishonesty is telling adversely on the reputation, culture and the delivery, one cannot keep one’s eyes closed to that. And leaders must have a way to determine that informally. Am I contradicting myself? No. A leader must determine if a rascal is masquerading as a doer, he must meet his nemesis and his downfall must be advertised as an example. 

Professional dishonesty, which hides behind convenient rules and regulations or which finds recourse in indecision or procrastination to avoid committing to a rightful but risky path is perhaps worse than simple dishonesty. Those who are seemingly honest but can be professionally dishonest without a qualm can do greater damage. A leader must identify such members of the team and deal with them suitably and demonstrably.

As a leader you have to judge your men. There can be no gospel here. To each his own. But how did I go about it? 

(Insan  nahin   wo  jo   gunahgaar   nahin   hai,

Wo kaun sa gulshan hai jahan khar nahin hai)

(One who is guilty of no misdeed at all is indeed not human, where would you find a garden which has no thorns?)

As I have gone on saying, a lot was done towards facilities for sports, social interaction and physical rejuvenation of our staff and their families. A matter of my belief. Some senior officers kept telling me that I was spending railway money beyond what the provisions permitted and this is something that would be visited by the Audit or even Vigilance some day. I did not agree at all. I knew that there was no such limit on spending as long as it was done for a good purpose. Since I had already earned the reputation of pandering to the staff, it was better that I reject the apprehension without any doubts and continue to spend more in areas which had seen decades of neglect and let history judge me. An example: The staff quarters in all the colonies were without any fencing of hedge. There is some archaic provision that fencing could be provided for all staff quarters on cost sharing basis. If IR is committed to providing good housing for its staff, how can we stipulate that fencing, a basic need for privacy, be done only on cost sharing basis? We had to circumvent this stringency. Fortunately, we had some positive-thinking Finance officers in ICF and we spent crores providing simple Galvalume sheets as fencing for all quarters; it changed the aesthetic outlook of the colonies a great deal.

So much for the conundrum of handling the integrity and probity issues.

Consider this from a sonnet of the bard:

Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.

If I am already thought to be bad, if what I am doing is judged vile not by my feeling but by the way others see things and if I know what I am doing is right, then it is better to be vile than vile esteemed, that is, it is better to actually be bad than to be merely thought bad.

This matter of transparency, integrity and probity must come up for deep introspection and informed government guidelines or we would never rise above the puzzlement of transparency and integrity on one hand and delivery on the other.  Someday, perhaps, but for the nonce, let it be! Suffice it to say that we at ICF were largely free of this syndrome of purposeless sham transparency and integrity and that was the reason that we had contracts which fructified.

Hamlet tells Ophelia that, “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.” But Ophelia asks, “Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?” Hamlet’s observation sets up an opposition between virtue and beauty; virtue should not come into contact with beauty, as if her beauty might corrupt virtue. But Ophelia's hopeful counter-question is that nothing is a better complement to beauty than virtue and the twain should go together. Hamlet might have twisted these words later but it served my purpose very well. Honesty and transparency (virtue) must complement delivery (beauty).