The office established under the constitution to uphold law and justice is for the first time occupied by a man who is the subject of a criminal investigation. The Attorney General Mr Anand Ramlogan has found himself in a position that no respectable occupant would continue to serve under in light of what the office represents.
Country has to be a major consideration when any high office holder puts forward themselves to serve. It is therefore inconceivable that Mr Ramlogan has not submitted his resignation as a matter of principle given the magnitude and circumstances of the allegations of bribery and obstruction of an ongoing investigation.
There are many considerations and viewpoints that can be exhausted under the circumstances, however, our values are what defines us as individuals. The ethical and exemplary thing to do as the holder of the second highest office in the Parliament is to recuse oneself at least until one's name is cleared. It would therefore appear to the public that Mr Ramlogan may be holding on to office as his sanctuary of protection which would be highly unfortunate if true.
David West, however, has to be complimented as I agree to an extent with political analyst Dr Ragoonath when he said politicians do not have a history of doing the right thing. Dr Rowley is one politician however who in my humble view can be credited with doing the right thing when he exposed wrongdoing within his own party while in government in the interest of the public.
What actually gives validity to the allegations is that Mr West was seemingly calculating enough to gather the necessary evidence of time and date of phone calls to trace content and may have even more to reveal. All things being considered he was responsible and prudent enough to not remove his witness statement.
On a global scale T&T has been saddled with enough negative international stories from the murder rate to the Section 34 scandal, and all this while our corruption perception rating gets worse every year. Our country is in a genuine leadership crisis and the direct ripple effect of that is the negative influence on the younger generation. I think calling the general election now is an opportunity to allow the system to purge itself of the heavy concentration of ills plaguing our nation.
We have fiscal, social, business and broad economic issues to attend to which will determine how we spend our Independence day, Republic Day, Christmas, Divali, Eid and New Year celebrations etc, along with our day-to-day activities over the upcoming years.
Ronald Huggins
St Joseph