Dear Editor,
There are these not infrequent public waltzes, or dramas, or spectacles between the Chambers of the DPP and the GPF. Almost unfailingly, they involve high profile matters, or controversial ones.
Editor, the questions must be asked: What is the problem here? Fear? Indecisiveness? A tendency to shovel laterally hot button issues? Lack of confidence in one’s own, shall it be said, intelligence and strength?
The continued back and forth of well-travelled files (file sent to the DPP and file returned to the GPF) reminds of those old corporate practices of seeking outside counsel or bringing in management consultants. The underlying purpose was to have a body or group on which to hang the dunce cap. We relied on them!
I see some of the same weaknesses here: the familiar hesitancy, the reluctance to make a call, and then stand by it, and the passing the baton and sheltering behind the next fellow. I understand the need for more context, and more supporting facts. But the now patented merry-go-round only incurs disbelief. Why the resistance to biting the bullet and calling things as seen and as they are and move on? Why the retreat from being the poster boy (or girl) for independence? Why is there this unwillingness to stand up and stand out?
There is a crying need for public servants in sensitive positions (and all of us) to break away from the decayed mould, and transform and elevate selves into becoming singular examples of courage and principle. They must be prepared to be silos of professional rectitude, if so be the case.
But there has to be ceasing and desisting from what is part charade, part gimmickry, and all hilarious. It is time that long serving principals develop some backbone and mental and professional steel. And if backbone is asking for too much, then any kind of sinew and hard cartilage will have to do.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
