Message-ID: <s34cfc72.061@crs.loc.gov> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 14:42:06 -0500 From: Jonathan Sanford <mailto:JSANFORD@CRS.LOC.GOV> Subject: Re: Power politics -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
I was in Honduras last September interviewing people for a project I'm doing. I talkes with the folks who run the largest private power company (at Puerto Cortes) in the country. They told me that the Honduran government recently turned over operation of several of its state-owned electric power plants to private management companies. The state plants were very dirty (high effluents) and the broke down often, resulting in power outages. The private firms increased operating efficiency, reduced emissions, and improved reliability. Their prices were the same and their costs were also less than those of the state firms that previously managed operations, thus saving Honduras money. I suspect that attention to plant management had something to do with this situation. The Honduran government had been thinking of simply scrapping the old plants and getting funding for new ones, but the World Bank and IDB said they should try this new management arrangement first.I think there is validity to David Johnson's argument that the preferred career pattern in developing countries values clean office work over messier work in the field or the operation itself. Actually, we seem to have a problem with this tendency in the United States as well. Lots of people want to be lawyers; fewer want to learn how to actually build and operate things.
Jon Sanford