Dear Editor,
While in opposition, this current government scalded the PPP over its runaway corruption. Now twenty-four days later, we have inertia on corruption. The reports on the NDIA and NCN misfeasance are sitting on the President’s desk. These reports were actionable from Day 1 and would have immediately signalled a no-nonsense approach to corruption while satisfying their supporters who wanted the optics of fast and furious action. Now we hear the Prime Minister is waiting on the report to get to him. This is the man who is responsible for the domestic affairs of the nation, and the report sitting on the President’s desk is yet to get to him twenty-four days into a government that promised aggression on confronting corruption. It is continuation of the fog that surrounds many of the decisions made so far and the lack of explanation for them, such as what exactly is the Ministry of Social Cohesion? In an environment where the PPP’s pillaging was legendary, the lack of urgency is shameful.
Then there is the boondoggle of leaving many of the former PPP henchmen in their posts in agencies while waiting to conduct an audit. Why should PPP-appointed czars resign if the government inexplicably refuses to fire them or to send them on leave? Firing or sending these individuals on leave immediately would have allowed for the current government to implement some kind of freeze to enable an audit to be properly conducted. Why in the world did the government not call in the Auditor General’s office to conduct immediate spot audits to create that freeze as well as provide vital oversight from the get-go? No matter how lukewarm a government is about the AG’s office, it is reprehensible that it will bypass this resource paid for by taxpayers and in doing so miss the opportunity to take immediate action. Not to mention that once the AG started any kind of audit from Day 1, that act imposes legality and a legal penalty for any attempt to tamper with evidence.
The people of this country did not vote for this molasses-like impotence on corruption.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
