Protecting Integrity – Jamaica Observer

Dear editor,

How quickly the shine of respectability, the appearance of democracy, fades.

Like the gilded idols of our gods, the varnish peels away to reveal the cheap metal underneath. Such is the fate of our so-called representatives, our elected officials, who stand before us grinning and posing until the cracks in their armor are too wide to hide.

How does our country begin to untangle the tangled web that has shrouded the Jamaica Integrity Commission? This so-called watchdog, supposed to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability, has become a toothless lion, subject to the whims of the political elite it was supposed to control. What good are the commission’s enormous legal mandates and investigative powers when the very parliament that created it is trying to shackle and silence it?

The Ethics Commission was supposed to be a bulwark against the creeping rot, a guardian of our democratic ideals. But alas, he was undermined by the laws, his noble purpose was undermined by those he was supposed to curb, so they continue to rule. The commission sits powerless, like a guard, gagged and blindfolded.

With an annual budget exceeding $1 billion, the Ethics Commission must produce more. Commissioners are well paid compared to many government employees who have to achieve higher goals. The focus cannot be solely on the clause that prevents them from performing certain duties.

What hope then is there for the average Jamaican, for the farmer struggling to survive, for the underpaid and overworked teacher, for the youth dreaming of a better future? They look at the Integrity Commission and see only a reflection of their own powerlessness, their own despair.

Ours is a country where the powerful feed on the crumbs of the powerless, and the rich and well-connected make the rules according to their whims. And we, the citizens, must avert our eyes and murmur our consent, lest we be crushed under the weight of their privileges.

But we will not be forced to remain silent, not this time. We will raise our voices, louder and more insistently, until the corridors of power tremble with the force of our demands: honesty, transparency, government that truly serves the people, not the elite.

Let us stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and reclaim the promise of democracy that has been so cruelly betrayed.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

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