So What if the UNC Corrupt?
A colleague of mine, a committed member of the UNC, said to me with all the aplomb in the world that despite the charges of corruption being levelled against agents of the UNC government there was no proof of corruption. What proof did he want beyond what had been unearthed in, say, the operations of the North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) and Petrotrin? With a stumble in his voice, he couldn't say. If proof couldn't be found, was there therefore no corruption. No, he unhesitatingly said, but there was a need for proof, if the charges were to have any meaningfulness. I got the distinct sense that you could be corrupt once you were good enough to hide the proof.
His attitude recalled the cynical pragmatism of many in the recent general election campaign in the face of UNC overspending, particularly in the case of the airport. What if the UNC thief, they said, so long as they run something for we? They paving roads, they providing universal secondary education, they creating more jobs, so we getting something. So even if they thiefing, they sharing the goods and services.
It is a dangerous, debilitating cynicism, for it reveals that many of us do not believe we can mount any successful affirmative action against corruption and that we are reduced to rationalised acceptance of it. We remember PNM corruption, about which very little was done, and it has prepared us to be philosophically accepting of UNC corruption. To make matters worse, the apparent rampantness of UNC corruption after the PNM history has numbed our capacity for outrage.
It is a desperate numbness, for it is an effect that has descended on us in a socio-political context where we have worked out that no civilised counteraction to the scourge of corruption can work. We are not sure public condemnation will prevail. Or the law. Or the vote. We are very much into tribal politics, and the tribe in control acts, like my colleague above, as if it is their time for spoliation of the treasury. They will not vote out the government on the basis of corruption. Hell, they are not even convinced that any other government has been, or will be, less corrupt. The numbness has seriously compromised our sense of right and righteousness.
Meanwhile, we are further numbed by statements and actions of the government on corruption in state agencies. Finance minister Gerald Yetming appoints an independent firm to investigate matters at NWRHA before he can ask the DPP to lay charges against the apparent perpetrators, but he declares at the same time that Chairman Tim Gopeesingh should seriously consider his options as a government senator. And PM Panday says in one breath that his government has done more than any other to fight corruption and, in another, that he will not take action against any official suspected of corrupt financial practices, not even ask for resignations, until the independent investigator has reported and proof is provided.
The statements of both men carry an implied admission that there is corruption in the government, for you don't ask the former Chairman of a state agency where serious irregularities have been found to consider resigning from his new job of senator unless the facts before you are irresistible. And you don't talk about doing more about corruption unless you are sure there is corruption to deal with in the first place. Bas Panday knows, as do the rest of us, that Boards and their Chairmen are not picked by the opposition or the people but by his cabinet. If they are corrupt, then….
Panday and Yetming seem to be of the same mind as my colleague of the UNC. They are saying, There is corruption, we know, but where is the proof?
Apparently the Auditor General has not provided proof; all she has done is, apparently, to provide the basis for proof. Let an independent company use her basis and other bases to find proof, if any. The Auditor General is not independent (enough)!
But we must ask, Why couldn't the Auditor General's report be simply passed to the DPP for charges, if any, to be laid? In what cases of financial irregularities must a private investigator be invoked, and on what grounds? What's so special about chairmen and directors of state boards appointed by the government, and CEOs and other managers appointed by those boards?
The special treatment only adds to our numbness.
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