Touching the flesh

Jun 04, 2010 Editorial

The President and some of his Ministers are just back from their latest “Cabinet Outreach”, this time to the far-flung East Bank of Essequibo, extending some twenty to thirty miles from Georgetown. After the Ministers had fanned out into the several villages – including Hubu, a veritable symbol of remoteness, our local Timbuktu, so to speak – during the day, they assembled in the evening at Tuschen to be addressed by His Excellency, the President.
His Excellency was in fine fettle. Excoriating unnamed occupants of public institutions of being wannabee “little gods”, he warned that they would be held accountable for acting as if they were doing favours for the public when in truth they were being paid (by the government) to provide such services. It was obvious that His Excellency was at the end of his tether with these officials who were succoured by the public coffers but had exceeded the status of “Little Caesars” to become “Little Gods”.
He did not cease at their surly and benighted attitude but complained that when they did not provide “value for money”, the administration was blamed for “corruption”. This state of affairs, obviously, could not be allowed to continue.
Perchance so as not to embarrass his several Ministers (including the line Ministers of Public Service and Local Government who were both present after observing at first hand the local effects of their charges ministrations), the President passed over the fact that they (including himself) were “the Executive”, responsible for the performance of those purportedly incorrigible and recalcitrant public servants.
Even so, one hoped that Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, with responsibility for electricity, spared a though as to why most of West Coast was without power for most of the day. The President, statesman that he is, is bravely taking the long term view and working assiduously to ensure that Amaila Falls, comes on stream, so to speak.
“However,” according to the official state paper, “the President made allusion to the separation of powers between the administrative body, which he heads, the judiciary, and the legislative body.” He used the distinction to reemphasise (and reiterate) that his innocuous-sounding “administrative body” (not “Executive”) cannot be blamed for all the various and sundry aberrations of public officials.
To illustrate his point he took aim at the Judiciary: they are evidently quite slothful and even when they get around to doing their job, they make “bizarre” judgements. He did not expatiate on the excesses of the “legislative body”, which in point of fact his “administrative body” controls absolutely on account of the majority votes only his party can muster, to enact any legislation.
In elaborating on the hijacking of ballots, the onerous debt burden, the triple digit inflation, the “devastation in the nation’s economy, infrastructure and morale when the PPP/C took office” and the heroic action that it had taken to turn the situation around, the Tuschen meeting took on more the atmosphere of a good, old-fashioned political rally than a “Cabinet Outreach”. Not to mention outraged charges of “the many instances of scandalous misinformation and outright lies constantly being peddled by the opposition and their supporters in the private media.”
The presence of the General-Secretary of the PPP, who spoke just before the President – surely not by coincidence – did also lend credence to the nagging suspicion. Surely he is not a member of the Cabinet? Yet?
While it might seem a mite churlish to continue with this line of thought – especially against the background of the President’s poignant complaint that the private media are oblivious to the toll inflicted on the psyches of those in government (Are they not human? Do they not bleed if pricked?) by their unremitting nitpicking – we have to ask if we are witnessing the dress rehearsal for the next general elections?
But that would eviscerate the very foundation of the President’s uplifting and pointed theme that demands “accountability” in every sector of governance. Surely state funds would not be expended on the grubby and partisan business of securing “the administrative body” for another five years of serving the masses?