Dear Editor,
The citizens of this country spoke on November 28, giving a clear message to our Parliament that this will not be business as usual and their expectations are high, just and reasonable. Specific reference is made to the management of the people’s resources, and how same have been treated by the executive over a number of years, particularly in the case of the Consolidated Fund, where the executive has treated Fund as if it were their personal property.
The media have informed us of the recent Auditor General Report highlighting a number of transgressions which in fact are not reflected in the report for the first time, but there seems to have been a refusal on the part of the administration over the years to correct the way they manages the people’s resources, and to make that management consistent with the law of the land.
Given the mandate to the parliament it is expected that these acts will be addressed, because this is definitely inimical to the state and the people. With the new governance configuration the people expect laws and systems will be put in place to deal with the issue.
The culture of some believing that power and connections are an opportunity to get rich has to come to an end. Corruption robs the nation and the people of their hard-earned tax dollars and make us all poorer and more unsafe. For instance, the money which has been mismanaged could have gone toward crime-fighting, improving education, health care, roads, drainage infrastructure on the coastlands, creating jobs and utilizing the skills of the people in a constructive manner for their own and the country’s safety and development.
The people deserve better governance and this parliament must embrace the message and deliver to the people rational programmes supported by appropriate laws that can be used as a form of deterrence in sending a clear message to those who entertain the idea that this will be business as usual.
Let the process to right these wrongs begin now.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
