The filth of corruption

November 21, 2001

All this talk about "corruption" is rumour and "ole-talk", they claim. So we are to conclude that Gopeesingh, Makan et al were in fact arrested and charged on rumours.

So what does that say about our entire judicial set-up? What does that say about the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) whose only task, after investigations are completed, is to decide whether certain people involved are to be indicted based on the evidence at hand?

Yet the mantra continues: "Corruption in the NWRHA is rumour."

In a similar vein "voter-padding" in 2000 was deemed a figment of the mind of "sore losers" despite the fact that some 15-20 people were dragged to court to answer charges and at the moment are still before the courts, and for a while after the 2000 elections a certain leading member of a certain party unit virtually went into hiding.

To date there have been numerous reports that the police have stated both their disgust and abhorrence at the blatant attempts by State officials to forestall and stymie their investigations of voter padding. If the police are blocked from investigating, voter padding will remain a figment of somebody's imagination, no matter how many citizens come forward with the evidence that a long dead relative voted in 2000.

There is an old saying in this country that all one has to be to succeed in hoodwinking people is to be "boldface".

eep a straight face as you express empty platitudes about "unity" and "one love", act normal according to the youths, while below the surface you chop people down and attack every long-standing institution of modern civility.

A letter writer to one of the dailies had this to say recently: "Those anxious to shout corruption either have an axe to grind or are self-righteous types. Let's look for someone to blame, etc, as they have been conditioned to see everything in an adversarial way, them and us. Many times it's simply incompetence or mistakes made which are covered up and made to look like wrong doing or corruption..."

Are we to accept then that what went on with taxpayers' funds in the NWRHA was "incompetence"? Or was it "incompetence" for an official to hold two high-paying government jobs simultaneously, or for State officials to give themselves salaries as high as $60,000 and $70,000 a month?

Was it "incompetence" that allowed a particular CEO of a statutory authority to demand a year's salary in advance before he took up the job? Are we then "paranoid", "small-minded" and "superstitious", as the very letter writer went on to suggest, for objecting to such greed, such frenzied feeding at the national trough, as one reputable commentator described it?

And as if to add insult to injury, this letter writer sought to question the sense of morality and patriotism of those who protest the corruption of State officials and she advises as follows: "Let's try to seek balance and not go off the deep end, waving our banners of prejudice, immaturity and insecurity..."

So we are prejudicial, insecure and immature to protest corrupt acts. But whose sense of nationalism should really be called to question? The offenders or the offended? The health official who plunders taxpayers' money while the health services are crippled by shortages of all kinds or the nurses who stand up against the plunder and demand modern, professional standards for the people of this country? Whom should we be questioning?

In mature societies around the world public figures resign immediately once there is popular clamour that indicates huge sections of the populace have lost trust in office holders and question their integrity. Here public officials virtually dare the populace to remove them or knock them down, so "great" is their desire to "serve". "Serve whom?"

We are underdeveloped not because of the lack of economic resources, but precisely because of our unpreparedness for office and inability to date to institute genuine politics on the ground level.

As we said elsewhere, this readiness to accept and embrace corruption and plunder of the public purse goes deep.

There are people here who will never countenance the taking of anything that does not rightfully belong to them.

There are people who will never even allow their children to bring home another child's pencil or eraser, so mindful are they about the moral upbringing of their offspring, while there are others who will tell their children that the only thing wrong with stealing is getting caught.

There are people who will move markers in the dead of night to shift land boundaries in order to steal one single square inch of land and turn around to violently defend their larceny.

Some kneel and pray or "give prayers" to receive "blessings" and "spiritual guidance" to steal successfully. Just like the Mafia chiefs who will go to church and afterwards proceed immediately to murder someone as it is deemed "only business".

There are people in T&T who steal as a matter of course. They hold the view that "cows have to graze where they are tied", meaning that wherever one holds an "8-4" job is the very place where one must feed at the trough. With an incremental consciousness, so to speak, they steal a little every day from their workplace and stockpile at home. One nail a day will eventually mean one pound of nails available to be sold on the open market.

They are prominent people around us today who emerged from such backgrounds. What are we to expect of them? When Desmond Cartey made the statement "All o'we thief" while attempting to establish the necessary link between those who will steal directly from the national coffers with those who "steal time", ie getting paid for time not worked, the statement was deliberately misconstrued and used politically against him.

What will be done with Daphne's words that "corruption works for her party"? Shall her political career be brought to an abrupt end because of a misinterpretation of her words taken out of context? Absolutely not! Because times have changed and all the rules of social convention and decency have been abandoned. It will be impossible to reduce her to being a recluse as was done to Desmond. Now, it is anything goes! Morality is whatever is deemed essential to keep certain people in power. Our values and mores have been twisted out of shape and beyond recognition.

Our proletarian consciousness and principles that have so greatly shaped the early Caribbean civilisation have finally been submerged, overwhelmed by the values of the imperial conquistadors, the obvious result of even further globalisation. Imagine, there were "bikes" in our "rice" which we never received.

There is a certain psychological filth that underscores stealing. Some person or persons unknown broke into a bedroom I once occupied and stole some personal stuff and when I discovered this horror, for some strange reason I found myself washing everything that was in that room.

Reality had struck home that this was in fact tantamount to an abuse of private personage, almost like a "rape", the "unauthorised touching" and invasion of one's sacredness. Corruption has the same psychological effect on the nation's psyche and sanctity. It's a stinking stain of nastiness that will force us to wash.