Lagging… corruption

Your Eyewitness would like to ask the question frontally – and brutally: is it possible to get rid of corruption in general and in government in particular?? And he’d like to give you his answer just as frontally and brutally – NO!! There ain’t any ifs and buts about this…corruption is endemic to the human condition. One famous philosopher who’s quoted all over the place for centuries on these matters pronounced about “out of this crooked timber we are made”. We come into the world already bent towards corruption. We didn’t need no apple to bend us or no serpent to stray us!!
So, does this mean we gotta accept corruption?? Absolutely not!! Some people are also born with the urge to kill their fellow human beings…should we allow the Ted Bundys of the world to get away with their cold-blooded slaughter?? More to the point – we’re all born with the urge to either lay or get laid with whomever turns us on. Do we allow folks to bop others on the heads like the cavemen and cavewomen of yore and drag them into their lairs to satisfy their urges?? No siree Bob!! The thing is, we gotta set up rules of the game to control those tendencies that are detrimental to us as a society living the good life.
So, now about corruption? The first thing is we all gotta follow your Eyewitness’s philosophy as stated above and assume that EVERYONE is out to screw you over. That shopkeeper selling you rice?? Check his scale. That contractor bidding for contracts?? Check out if he’s bribing the folks in charge of procurement. The contractor executing the contract for a road or a bridge or whatever? Check out if he’s bribing the Government supervisors – and so on and so forth.
But because corruption didn’t just drop from above in 2020, the Government can reasonably point out that it has ALREADY put in place institutions to do just the checking your Eyewitness mentioned!! Like that Integrity Commission that’s supposed to hone in on corruption by those in Government. But yet the accusations of corruption keep coming more fast and furious than Vin Diesel!! The question is the eternal one signalled all the way back to Roman times – <<<Quis custodiet ipsos custodes>>>? Who’s gonna guard the guardians?? In this case who’ll ensure the Integrity Commission does its job?!!
A while back when corruption was in the news, VP Jagdeo suggested that we – John Public – enter the picture. He advised that the moment we suspect or hear about corruption in public life – we have a duty to go public!!
Let’s all get whistles and start blowing!!

…development
When your Eyewitness was in school, one of the first thing the economics teacher pointed out was the difference between “growth” and “development”. Growth’s about the economy – which includes building bridges, highways, factories, and so on. And alphabet soup concoctions like GNP and GDP and so on describe it. On the other hand, “development” refers to people! So, all that growth – which might even be negative, mind you, like during the Burnham years! – might take some time to improve people’s lives.
As such, development ain’t like instant coffee where you just heat up the water, throw in the coffee, stir and bingo!! So the Government’s doing itself a disservice by insisting we’re experiencing “development” when lots of folks haven’t been affected by the growth of the economy as yet. Like in Berbice, for instance, where servicing the new oil industry hasn’t hit them yet. But better times are coming in the next five years when a new gas pipeline will be landed – with all the attendant spin-offs for new businesses!!
So let’s tell it like it is – we gotta bear strain with growth but better (development) days are comin’!!

…realisation
A lot of folks have their drawers in knots about a “new imperialism”. C’mon!! You think the IMF, World Bank, WTO, UNSC, etc, were working on behalf of we, the sh*thole countries??