Dear Editor,
The investigation of Region Four Regional Executive Officer (REO) Shafdar Ali is a case of too little too late and politics before propriety. Clouds have been hovering over Ali’s ethical decorum for some time before this recent straw that broke the camel’s back. The government in its quest to save face and to maintain its position kept Ali intact despite swirling allegations and suspicions. It only acted after the evidence mounted and it realized that its continued backing of Ali by any standard and particularly on the eve of a major election could impair its despairing credibility. Plus, it saw an opportunity to try to spin its actions as fighting corruption, which would appease some of its constituency before the vote.
Let us not forget that this remains a circumstance of a government not taking proactive steps against corruption, but one of a government acting only when the writing is so indubitably on the wall that it had to act out of self-preservation. Ali held four key positions within the Region Four administration, an unreasonable surfeit of power with its own recipe for corruption that any honest government would have readily observed. After powerful protestations the PNC did nothing when a minority AFC member raised a motion to strip Ali of his powers. It is clear that the Region Four RDC was a cesspit of political manoeuvres and power hustles to the point that fighting corruption was somehow seen as secondary to political gain. With the PNC’s unerring focus on power and the PPP’s focus on fighting the PNC at all costs, Ali allegedly got a wide berth. It is a classic case of how puerile and ignorant political behaviour enables corruption.
This is a case where the opposition party was so focused on its own narrow self-interest that it failed to vote decisively in the matter of an official accused of financial impropriety. It was a case of the systemic practice of corruption emboldened by narrow pursuits, blind politics and self-serving insecurities encouraged by a climate of graft. This is an unmitigated failure by the nation’s two biggest political failures. This poor suffering nation cannot afford a political culture where groups are so locked in battle for their own self-interest and self-preservation that they overlook and cannot detect alleged pilfering of already limited resources. We cannot fight and thief for the rest of our lives. Something has to change and radically so for the sake of our future.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
