…and responsibility to society
The reaction of representatives of the PNC-led Government to the scandals sprouting all over the place like jumbie umbrellas is very telling. Jumbie umbrellas, after all, are mushrooms that basically grow by being kept in the dark and being fed “sh*t”!!
And this is what the Ministers and officials been doing, haven’t they?? For four years, they kept us in the dark about when they’d get around to fulfilling all the promises they made in their slick Manifesto. And only when their feet are being held to the fire after the NCM have they launched “outreaches”, wherein they’ll feed those who turn up sh*t!!
Don’t hold your breath for them to release the numbers on how many ACTUALLY got jobs at the Ministry of Youth’s Job Fair – which they’ll now take to Berbice!! If they really wanted to help Berbicians, how come they didn’t launch job fairs right after they fired those 4000 sugar workers?? Anyhow, back to the scandals and the reactions. Nagamootoo, who’s ACTING as President — is he really CHAIRING Cabinet meetings at long last? — insisted the two Ministers on the firing line acted in accordance with the Govt’s (still not released) Code of Conduct and the Integrity Act!! Well, if that’s so, no wonder their Code’s stillborn!!
Even Ghoulsarran, who worked so hard to get Nagamootoo and company into office, recently insisted they were in breach of the Integrity Act — passed, not incidentally, by the PPP. The PNC and AFC, from the onset, refused to submit their required declarations with the body; so their actions shouldn’t have surprised Ghoulsarran.
If these Ministers were weaned by the PNC on the notion they can cherry-pick the rules of the Integrity Commission, why should they not be just as selective and close their eyes to the most blatant of conflicts of interest??
There’s a long, long established history about the impossibility of practising selective morality – the willingness to do the dirty quickly permeates the practitioner’s entire being!! It’s like selling your soul to the Devil – there’s no line that can be drawn. And this was the position from the very beginning.
Could there be a more immoral decision that honouring Hamilton Green with an OR — whose LEAST sin was blocking Rodney’s appointment to UG — and then bumping his pension to $1.4 million monthly? What about Roopnaraine being involved in the Durban Park scam?? And let’s not talk about giving themselves a 50 per cent salary hike, while pi55ing on Government workers who’re their most faithful followers.
The point is, the Govt can have the most impressive Code of Behaviour, but if they exempt insiders, all others will follow suit.
The fish first start stinking at the head!!
…for businesses
One buzzword percolating our globalised village nowadays is “corporate governance”. While we all know about the proclivity of governments to take to corruption like duck to water, and proceed to fill their pockets, the tendency also became pronounced in the corporate world. We know from the beginning that the word on business was “caveat emptor” – buyers beware. But in the last few decades, the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” and the sharks in the City of London have taken corporate corruption to a whole new level. It’s now countries beware!!
In reaction to Maxwell’s Mirror conglomerate imploding ignominiously in multi-billion fraud across in England, followed by Enron in the States, Satyam in India, and so on, the powers that be thought it was time for some Codes of “corporate governance”. Problem is they couldn’t decide whether to make the rules mandatory or just leave them aspirational.
After CLICO’s collapse, discussion on a Corporate Code’s even reached our shores. But with the PNC setting the pace on corruption, the PSC better make it mandatory!!
Business see, business do!!
…for the Police
The Public Security Minister evidently jumped the gun on his Guyana Police Force becoming a “kinder and gentler” organisation. The first step was changing their name to the “Guyana Police Service”.
Are they waiting until the elections are over?
