There was a whole lotta kvetching and bitching by the Opposition and their myrmidons about the appointment of the Integrity Commission by Pres Ali last year. But you gotta understand where these folks are coming from. The word “integrity” to PNC people is like garlic to vampires!! It just sucks the lifeblood out of them!! But then, their party was founded by Burnham on the betrayal of the nationalist cause when he conspired with the Imperialists to split the movement for “pelf and power”!! Integrity?? Gwan da side!!
But they didn’t call his successor Granger the “Sanctimonious Gangster” for nothing!! After all, he was weaned by Burnham himself to betray the principles of military integrity!! Imagine going along with – and even being the point man – to promulgate the army’s swearing PERSONAL loyalty to King Kong! Anyhow, when he was handed the presidency by Corbin who worked out the coalition strategy – and even executed it – it was Granger who came up with a “Code of Conduct” to go with the Integrity Commission. Which the PNC had NEVER supported for decades. The Sanctimonious One was just the man to try rehabilitating the PNC in other areas than politics!!
Granger’s point man on the Code of Conduct was Raphael Trotman – his oleaginous clone from “Nassau” days!! You gotta be hypocrites of this magnitude to say with a straight face that Ministers of Government are expected to act with propriety on all occasions!! Takes a lotta brass balls!! When Trotman signed that “contract” with Exxon, he had to’ve broken every one of those guiding moral principles!! The best any of his defenders can say is he was “loyal” to the foundation principle of the PNC on betrayal!! Like the scorpion who bit the kind toad fetching him across the swollen river and drowned, “it was his nature”!!
The cynicism of the PNC on integrity in general and on the Commission in particular was exemplified by the just released report from the Commission – headed by Chairwoman Gajraj. Imagine that Former Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon, alongside nine other former and current Opposition Parliamentarians failed to submit their 2022 declarations to the Integrity Commission!! And the Opposition still have the chutzpah to accuse the PPP of playing fast and loose on financial probity!! Like charity, this begins at home – but sadly it’s still absent in the PNC!!
What makes it worse is Granger had sanctimoniously announced a Code of Conduct – drafted by Trotman with 10 principles – Accountability, Dignity, Diligence, Duty, Honour, Integrity, Loyalty, Objectivity, Responsibility, and Transparency – to tighten the Integrity Act!!
Financial propriety is the modern test of those values. But the PNC bigwigs wouldn’t recognize this if it crept up and bit them on their bamzies, would they?!
…in Russia
Russia’s Putin always figured he was one smart fly!! And w know where the end up, don’t we??!! Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong – he knows the US and it’s NATO allies pushed the envelope in Ukraine. But hey!! You just don’t invade neighbouring countries claiming lebensraum – like Hitler did in 1938!! Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me, innit??
Well, Putin didn’t stop with his troops invading Ukraine to “denazify” it. He sent in the 20-40,000 strong mercenary force Wagner Group – headed by his friend Yevgeny Prigozhin – to use tactics that would amount to war crimes by regular Russian forces. But he didn’t count on the Wagner group turning rogue and invading Russia because of the beef between his friend and his military command!!
That the Wagner Group was able to move unimpeded towards Moscow exposed cracks in Putin’s braggadocio! He didn’t save much face with an emboldened West when Prigozhin halted his troops just before Moscow!!
A deal was brokered!
…in the woke chatterati
With the heightened awareness of the abuse of young Indigenous girls, your Eyewitness accepts that it’s better late than never. But he’s appaledat the racist assumptions about Indigenous Peoples that made the Woke Brigade silent all these years!!