Dear Editor,
Reflecting on the present situation on the appointment of a Town Clerk to the Mayor and City Council, I have decided to pen my displeasure since the situation in its present state requires no less.
The Minister of Local Government through his ministry invested in the process to appoint or confirm senior officers of the Mayor and City Council. Advertisements and relevant interviews as required were done by the panel with his blessing.
The process was followed and with fairness to the most successful applicant, he/she ought to be appointed.
Victor Hugo once said, “Where there is darkness, crimes will be committed. The guilty one is not he/she who committed the crimes, but who causes the darkness.” In addition, a government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on Paul’s support.
A leader (Minister) ought not to make the majority suffer by a bad decision to spare the feelings of an unqualified or incompetent individual. That person’s selection or appointment was a travesty of justice, but it was not the person’s fault. That person may be nothing more than an honourable part of a government not yet itself completely honourable, not yet willing to give honour where honour is due on a basis of merit and merit alone. This government, however, by this and many other decisions seems to have an imperative for rewarding mediocrity. They simply feel that an elected government has earned the right to govern, while the Ministers of Local Government, among others, behave as though they are in charge of a football game and have the right to shift the goalpost to their advantage while the game is in progress. They keep changing agreed policies in defence of same, in the way one would attribute to a sophist. In closing I echo the words of Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Yours faithfully,
Eon Andrews
Councillor
