Richard Ra­moutar

"A pop­u­lar gov­ern­ment with­out pop­u­lar in­for­ma­tion or the means of ac­quir­ing it is but a pro­logue to a farce or a tragedy or per­haps both. Knowl­edge will for­ev­er gov­ern ig­no­rance, and a peo­ple who mean to be their own gov­er­nors must arm them­selves with the pow­er knowl­edge gives." James Madi­son, Let­ter to W T Bar­ry, Au­gust 4, 1822.

Per­haps, one of the most in­spi­ra­tional, in­flu­en­tial po­lit­i­cal mes­sages em­a­nat­ing from the hi­er­ar­chy of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) pri­or to May 24, 2010, that ar­rest­ed na­tion­al ap­peal and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­voked the na­tion's elec­torate was the word "change". Al­most two years in­to gov­er­nance, there is not on­ly a yearn­ing for this "change" to ma­te­ri­alise, but re­al­i­ty has hit the peo­ple with a stun­ning as­sault on their over­all in­tel­li­gence and pock­ets.

Be­sides the PP Gov­ern­ment ren­der­ing a few ser­vices to the na­tion, the cit­i­zen­ry is reg­is­ter­ing their dis­con­tent in a va­ri­ety of ways. If not par­tic­u­lar­ly care­ful, the present so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges ex­pe­ri­enced by the ma­jor­i­ty of dis­en­fran­chised cit­i­zens has the po­ten­tial to se­ri­ous­ly chal­lenge the Gov­ern­ment and may very well lead to a call for elec­tions.

In their ear­ly dis­pen­sa­tion of new gov­er­nance, what the na­tion an­tic­i­pat­ed in terms of the pre-elec­tion po­lit­i­cal mes­sage and what they saw and ex­pe­ri­enced are now two dif­fer­ent tunes. Hav­ing foist­ed all blame and ac­cusato­ry fin­gers for the ills be­set­ting this na­tion (in­clu­sive of in­creased crime, cor­rup­tion and squan­der­ma­nia) on the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, the pop­u­la­tion is ask­ing the rel­e­vant ques­tions: Where are the PP's mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive changes of the rules of gov­er­nance?

With no im­me­di­ate ev­i­dence of change, the ques­tion be­ing asked by the elec­torate is, have they been po­lit­i­cal­ly se­duced and tak­en for a ride in the name of "change"? These pub­lic ques­tions come amidst sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions of favouritism, nepo­tism, al­lo­ca­tion of con­tracts and ob­fus­ca­tion of ten­der­ing and pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures, bungling with the in­tel­li­gence and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus and its role in com­bat­ing transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes.

Fu­elling this no­tion of aban­don­ment is the pub­lic per­cep­tion that "on­ly those close to the lead­er­ship," some Cab­i­net col­leagues, their fam­i­ly, friends and po­lit­i­cal bene­fac­tors are ac­quir­ing tan­gi­ble bless­ings. While there may ex­ist gen­uine Cab­i­net mem­bers who work as­sid­u­ous­ly for the ad­vance­ment of the cit­i­zen­ry, the same may not be ap­plic­a­ble to all. Po­lit­i­cal in­sid­ers have claimed that there are those who may be ben­e­fit­ing enor­mous­ly.

It would be of tremen­dous pub­lic in­ter­est and for the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to scru­ti­nise the is­sues of as­sets and as­sets trac­ing, land ac­qui­si­tion, busi­ness ven­tures, fam­i­ly hold­ings, lo­cal and for­eign ac­counts, and any dum­my com­pa­nies reg­is­tered by of­fice hold­ers in this Gov­ern­ment pri­or to May 24, 2010 and to the present.

What ap­pears to be con­sis­tent­ly emerg­ing from the PP Gov­ern­ment is the many at­tempts to shield the ad­min­is­tra­tion from pub­lic trans­paren­cy. This fur­nace of af­flic­tion is of the PP's own cre­ation. And who knows whether there per­haps ex­ist the tri­ad of bribery, kick­backs, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of white col­lar bless­ings.

Is that im­pos­si­ble? Why would Mary King speak about "al­li­ga­tors " in the Cab­i­net, and why does David Ab­du­lah echo con­cerns about con­tracts to Chi­nese when there are hun­dreds of qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced con­trac­tors and thou­sands of un­em­ployed cit­i­zens in the con­struc­tion sec­tor?

Prin­ci­ple of ac­count­abil­i­ty

Frankly speak­ing, in a democ­ra­cy the prin­ci­ple of ac­count­abil­i­ty holds that gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials-whether elect­ed or ap­point­ed by those who have been elect­ed-are re­spon­si­ble to the cit­i­zen­ry for their de­ci­sions and ac­tions. Thus, trans­paren­cy re­quires that the de­ci­sions and ac­tions of those in gov­ern­ment are open to pub­lic scruti­ny and that the pub­lic has a right to ac­cess such in­for­ma­tion.

These con­cepts are cen­tral to the very idea of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance. In the ab­sence of ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, democ­ra­cy is im­pos­si­ble. Con­se­quent­ly, elec­tions and the no­tion of the will of the peo­ple have no mean­ing, and gov­ern­ment has the po­ten­tial to be­come ar­bi­trary and self-serv­ing.

The peo­ple's right to know

As we all can con­cur, elec­tions are the pri­ma­ry means for cit­i­zens to hold the na­tion's of­fi­cials ac­count­able for their ac­tions in of­fice, es­pe­cial­ly when they have be­haved il­le­gal­ly, cor­rupt­ly or in­ept­ly while car­ry­ing out the work of the Gov­ern­ment. But for elec­tions-and the peo­ple's will-to be mean­ing­ful, ba­sic rights must be pro­tect­ed and af­firmed in an­oth­er doc­u­ment be­sides the Con­sti­tu­tion, like a Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms in Cana­da.

If cit­i­zens are to gov­ern their own af­fairs, ei­ther di­rect­ly or through rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, they must be in­formed about how best to de­ter­mine their af­fairs and how best to rep­re­sent and ex­e­cute them. In the ab­sence of these in­stru­ments for ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy, gov­ern­ment is like­ly to suc­cumb to cor­rup­tion. This has oc­curred through­out his­to­ry when no con­trols have been placed on gov­ern­men­tal pow­ers and lead­ers have sought on­ly to re­tain pow­er.

It has been stat­ed that, "One of the most no­table achieve­ments of Athen­ian democ­ra­cy in an­cient times was its es­tab­lish­ment of civil­ian over­sight of pub­lic funds and the wealth and in­comes of all pub­lic fig­ures (in­clud­ing gen­er­als), so that they did not ben­e­fit from their pub­lic po­si­tions.

Au­di­tors, fi­nan­cial con­trollers of the trea­sury and judges were cho­sen an­nu­al­ly by lot. This sys­tem of ac­count­abil­i­ty stood in stark con­trast with near­ly all oth­er gov­ern­ments in the an­cient world, most of which were despot­ic and marked by cor­rup­tion, per­son­al en­rich­ment and ag­gran­dis­e­ment."

Next week...

The For­eign Iden­ti­ty Cri­sis