…the Cabinet from work?
Just when your jaded Eyewitness thought he’d heard it all, up comes this howler. Asked how come the Cabinet’s still reviewing mega contracts by granting or withholding their “no objection”, the Chair of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) “explained” Cabinet has to be “weaned away” from that task!!
That’s right – WEANED AWAY!! Now your Eyewitness’ dictionary informs him that “weaning” is when you have to “accustom (someone) to managing without something on which they have become dependent, or of which they have become excessively fond”. Usually, we hear the phrase used with babies of mammals who initially get their nourishment from their mothers’ milk… how sweet that is! But after they’ve developed their capabilities, they’re expected to move on to regular fare.
So what’s this need to “WEAN AWAY” the Cabinet from passing or holding onto mega contracts? For years when they were in Opposition, APNU and AFC beat the PPP over the head for not constituting the PPC as was required by statute. The reason, they said, was the PPP – being the PPP – was using the “no objection” power of Cabinet to feather their nests by directing contracts to their “cronies”. The formation of the PPC and the removal of Cabinet’s approval on contracts, was so important to the AFC for instance, they promised to support the PPP with the AFHEP if they would just “do it”.
But here we are almost two years AFTER they were elected to Office – and they were dragged kicking and screaming to form the PPC – the PNC-led coalition Government has to be WEANED away from the practice they deemed “corrupt” under the PPP??? Well, at least we know why the word “weaned” was used by Mrs Corbin, the Chair of the PPC! Obviously those in the new Government didn’t take long to become used to whatever sweetness they’d accused the PPP of imbibing.
If, as their defenders may claim, the Cabinet had become used to the onerous WORK of approving contracts – such as rentals of pharma warehouses for 0 million – Mrs Corbin wouldn’t have had to WEAN them away, would she? Who becomes “excessively fond” of work??!!
Now your Eyewitness remembers that, conscious of the sweetness of illicit “siphoning off” of public funds, the Minister of the Presidency had justified the 50 per cent salary increase in the salaries of Cabinet Ministers for just this purpose. Taking home at least TEN times the salary of the lowly public servants under them and drawing oodles of fringe benefits (and then some!!) the Minister claimed, would immunize the Cabinet from temptation.
Seemed it didn’t work, because they now have to be WEANED AWAY from something “excessively” sweet!!
…the colonial from sentimentality
Beatle John Lennon crooned “Imagine”, his paean to a life without divisions of race or class and just being “human” not long after Sidney Pointier brought to life ER Braithwaite’s “To Sir with love” on the big screen. Braithwaite describes his efforts to create such a world in a London ghetto, probably much like the one Lennon would’ve grown up in Liverpool. A schoolteacher in England, far from British Guiana, Braithwaite’s growth was a product of a genteel time when Black colonial of a certain background could still imagine himself as a “human being” – albeit a “British human being”.
What else could a boy, who went to school at Queens in the 1920’s, joined the RAF during WWII and then earned a Master’s in Physics at Cambridge think? The British insisted we weren’t “ready” but must be “tutored” to become equal. Well, Braithwaite accepted the “tutoring” but was disabused of his idealism by British reality.
But the feel-good movie still brings a loopy grin to your Eyewitness face!! RIP Sir.
…away from black money
With all his talk of an “underground” and “criminalised” economy by head of SARU, will he be recommending a withdrawal of our $5000 note, to drain that swamp?
If there ever was one!!
