The suddenness of Minister of State Joseph Harmon’s apology for his controversial ‘no apology’ remark made more than a month ago and arising out of the official announcement regarding a salary increase for ministers of government is not as small a matter as it might seem. Since Mr Harmon appears to have emerged as a key figure in the Granger administration and as the government’s key spokesman on most issues, the apology becomes more than a personal expression of regret; it reflects a more holistic official mindfulness of the importance of doing all that he can to manage the administration’s public image.
The apology would also have been important for a government that came into office with decided working class credentials and which, one assumes, would have been anxious to expunge from the public consciousness the perception that one of its high-profile officials was guilty of unrepentant arrogance.
As an aside, Mr Harmon and the government must learn from this episode that in the future apology must follow transgression in a much shorter space of time. All sorts of unfortunate interpretations can be applied to protracted interregnums between one and the other. The other oddity about the apology, of course, is the quite needless and disingenuous appending to the statement of the exclusion of the People’s Progressive Party from the apology. Frankly, it came across as somewhat trite.
Mr Harmon’s ‘no apology’ pronouncement in October further upset those who were already fuming over the announced salary increase, a matter on which, incidentally, feelings still appear to run high in some quarters. And while it seemed that the government might have decided to suck up the fallout from what Mr Harmon had to say, we now know, based on the eventual arrival of the apology, that the public point about what was perceived in some quarters as an excursion into arrogance had not escaped the administration’s attention and that some sort of gesture of official contriteness was either always on the cards or perhaps might have been decided on once it became clear that public criticism of the remark was not going away.
Earlier hints that Mr Harmon might have been readying himself for a retreat from his ‘no apology’ position came first, through his pronouncement regarding the desirability of a significant increase in public servants’ salaries; and after that there was his disclosure on the manner in which he planned to dispose of his own ministerial salary increase. Both pronouncements were accorded prominence in sections of the media. Nor is it inconceivable that there might well have been a measure of persuasion/pressure from the administration and perhaps from the President, directly, for Mr Harmon to demonstrate a measure of contriteness. If that is true it suggests that while the issue had eventually spent itself as far as the media was concerned, the government and the President were only too aware that it continued to linger in the public consciousness and may have decided that sooner rather than later, it had to be dealt with frontally.
It is not in the nature of our politicians to say sorry for such errors in judgment as they might make. From their vantage point concessions are seen as awkward compromises, indications of weakness that strip them of a perfectly insipid notion that they are always right. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. In this instance, one notes the directness of Mr Harmon’s apology. There is no attempt to cloak it in semantics and ambiguities or, as one may say, to fudge the issue. It may have come belatedly (and the remark about the PPP may have been an oddity) but when it came it was a straightforward and unambiguous ‘I am sorry’ note. That is to his credit.
And if it is something that would have been discussed with the President and perhaps with others of his ministerial colleagues, the apology suggests that Mr Harmon may not consider himself too big a fish to ‘say sorry.’ That too is to his credit.
For the APNU+AFC administration as much as for Mr Harmon, the apology is a good sign. If it has come from a collective administration position that the ‘no apology’ remark had put a dent its public image and that the best way to deal with it was to have Mr Harmon man up and ‘say sorry’ then that is not only sensible politics but also a gesture that reflects a mindfulness of the sensitivities of its constituency.
An experience like this, we hope, ought to help the administration keep both feet on the ground. Hopefully, too, it would bring about a quelling of some of the rumours regarding tendencies towards aloofness and inaccessibility on the parts of some ministers and other high officials that are beginning to float around. A preponderance of official meetings is no excuse for what, in some cases, appears to be the almost permanent non-availability of ministers (and other high officials) to engage ordinary people on matters that have their own considerable measures of importance.
