Crime is a direct function of bad governance
THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE DAMNING revelations by some of our constituted oversight bodies on government’s improprieties drive me to be brutally frank and ask the question: is our government in some criminal conspiracy?
Since this government came to power in 2016, our two dailies have been plastered with a litany of headlines, reporting on acts of corruption and other improprieties.
What concerns me most are the facts that all of those acts of corruption and improprieties are happening during the first three years of this administration and not on the back end of it.
It would appear that they came in with an immediate intent to be unlawful, corrupt, and to trample on governance processes. Our Auditor General’s Department, Office of the Contractor General (OCG), the Integrity Commission, the Public Accounts Committee have all unearth and made public, frightening acts of improprieties by the Government.
LITANY OF SCANDALS
A senior government minister’s farm was found with grass that was intended for poor and marginalised dairy farmers. The Petrojam issues are all fresh in our memories, and to top it all, the recent OCG’s report on the divestment of Urban Development Corporation lands. If that were not enough, our constitutional court found the Government’s National Identification and Registration Act (NIDS) to be flawed, unconstitutional, and unlawful, as it impinges on the rights of ordinary citizens.
Interestingly, the day the damning OCG report was to be tabled in our Parliament was the same day the prime minister chose to announce the declaration of a state of public emergency (SOE) in three western parishes. Was the Government trying to change the narrative on the OCG report? We must bring into sharp focus the Government’s inability to raise the bar of governance in the country. All aspects of corruption and criminality across the country are a direct function of bad governance. Unless the Government starts striving for better governance, SOE cannot help us as crime is a direct function of bad governance. FERNANDEZ SMITH Former JLP Councillor fgeesmith@yahoo.com