Electricity of Haiti Crisis: Need for an Issues-based Planning

Electricity of Haiti Crisis: Need for an Issues-based Planning

Leontes Dorzilme

Walden University

June 2014

The energy electric is the basic element in creating sustainable development in this era of technology development. It happens that Haiti has a huge energy problem since 1987 after the departure from the power of the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier. The fall down of the national electric company called the Electricity of Haiti becomes a preoccupation for anyone, in a sense that business production costs are significantly increasing because of the expenses each private business or organization has to insert in their budget for generators and gas. The Electricity of Haiti, to capture to essential of its characteristic, was created by the government to produce, commercialize, and manage the entire system of electric energy production. But, same as many public sector entities in Haiti accusing a great management weakness, the electric company is running on deficit. During the Duvalier’s reign, the Haitian capital used to have energy 24 hours a day. Since 1989, about three years after the departure of the former president Jean Claude Duvalier, the distribution of electric energy has become rare with as low as 12 to six hours of energy electric a day. Two other public companies created in the same condition as the electricity of Haiti were already privatized. They are the national Telecommunication Company and the National Cement Company. They are both working well with the public sector keeping many of the organization’s shares. The second approach could be to revamp the Electricity of Haiti by creating a strategic plan.  This paper is aimed at evaluating the best strategic plan model from Bryson (2011) stated framework to revamp the Electricity of Haiti.

In order to reverse the administrative and commercial failure of the national electric company, the government has decided around 2005 to buy produced energy from three private companies created specifically to produce and sell energy to the Electricity of Haiti. Despite this new approach, the problem persists on many levels because of the incapacity of the national company to come with an effective and efficient planning plan in order to regulate the distribution and the commercialization of the electricity which are still on the responsibility of the public sector. The government is obliged to grant annually a financial input of 200 million to support the EDH deficit while the company collects only 50 million from the customers, mostly because of fraudulent connections, reports the newspaper Le Matin (2013). The national electric company needs 12 million a month to buy privately generated energy.

There is an urgent need for a real analysis of thee principal causes of failure of the Electricity of Haiti. As stated by McNamara (n.d), there is no one perfect classified strategic planning model for each type of organization. The approach should be based on context, needs, and vision.  The model may be chosen in relation to the purpose, the previous impact of measures that have been previously adopted; the organizational culture (McNamara (n.d); the internal and external work environment and the constituencies; and the organizational history illustrated by explicit knowledge. From the main strategic planning models such as the vision based or goals based model, the issue based one, the alignment model, the scenario planning, the organic approach, and the real-time planning; it is obvious that the issues approach may be better  in the case of the Electricity of Haiti.

It has never been a clear vision stated for the company. In addition, it was said that foreign organizations have done a SWOT analysis to evaluate the issues. But, the results are not published. From the Nutt (2008) perspective, the management should start by evaluating what is the best model to approach the strategic planning and change in the organization. They may start with the best and worst case scenario to evaluate what is the benefits and the downfall if they privatize the Electricity of Haiti. Despite many political activists groups have seen in the privatization a way of getting the government under the control of the capitalism and the private sector, there is always a way to design policies that may protect both the government and the population from any excessive abuse if the national electric company is privatized. The best case scenario should be to craft a strategic plan to revamp the Electricity of Haiti using public resources and making it profitable instead of running on deficit as it is now. A SWOT analysis may be conducted in order to evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the national Electric Company of Haiti while considering what may be the opportunities for the government to keep it as a subsidiary of the public sector. In addition, the threats for the government to keep investing in it may be analyzed. In sum, create appropriate strategies to face the situation in a reasonable deadline- it may take five years as explained by Nutt (2008); to apply an implementation plan; work on the motivational drivers; bring the team that will conduct the project to thinking reflectively about the issues; and reframing the relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

To adjust the issues model of strategic planning with Bryson (2011) models, I would say that the five-part strategic development process should be applied to the Electricity of Haiti. This process should start with the identification of practical alternatives while the management to create a clear vision to ignite the dream of a change. In addition, the barriers and constraints must be enumerated. The strategic team will then develop clear proposals by taking into account the impact the changes may have on stakeholders and the way stakeholders may be part of the process. The actions to implement the proposals on a two to three years span must be identified. And finally a work program for a year should be crafted (Bryson, 2011).

Conclusion

For an organization to craft a strategic plan, the will power to go through the change must be existed.  The first step in the case of Electricity of Haiti should be a governmental decision to hire an external consulting team for a complete evaluation of the organization. The next step should be to request from the consulting team a clear strategic plan to solve the problem. And finally the consulting team should implement the application of the plan by creating a commission made of all stakeholders, trained to supervise the application of the plan and to guide the steps toward its effectiveness. McClamroch et al. (2011) have cited the importance of considering the political aspect in treating the strategic planning in librarianship. The same consideration needs to be made in the case of the Electricity of Haiti using the Peters and Waterman Jr.  (2011) 7S model. The model emphasizes the use of structure, strategy, systems, self management, skills, staff, and shared vision. Despite the classification should start with the shared vision, based on the strategy to create a learning organization (Senge, 2006), the model has the value to consider the structure and the systems. 

References

Bryson, J. M. (2011). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chapman, A. (1995-2009) Tom Peters and Robert H Waterman Jr - In Search Of Excellence summary. Retrieved from https://www.businessballs.com/tompetersinsearchofexcellence.htm

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Strategic planning: Collaboration, cooperation, and coordination: Approaches to strategic planning. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp#global-nav-flyout

McClamroch, J.,  Byrd, J., Sowell, S. (2011). Strategic Planning. Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 27(5), p372. 7p. Retrieved from  https://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=c8136e7a-3aa4-4bc5-b760-8e523c1e5560%40sessionmgr114&hid=125

McNamara, C. (n.d). Basic Overview of Various Strategic Planning Models. Free Management Library. Retrieved from
https://managementhelp.org/strategicplanning/models.htm

Nutt, P. (2008). Strategic planning: Collaboration, cooperation, and coordination: Approaches to strategic planning. [Video file]. Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?