A lapse in vigilance

EDITOR: That every injustice has to be paid for, is the principle of retribution, and the agony of the sufferer is sometimes multiplied when it returns to the head of the perpetrator.

When, about midnight, I was awakened by the now customary loud boom of amplified music coming from an entertainment house in the Arnos Vale area, I thought to counter the agony

by returning to continue with

the re-reading of Sir James’ book “A SEASON OF LIGHT”. I resumed at the last lines at the bottom of page 13 and I feel that Sir James’ wise counsel there is worth repeating – “At every stage in dealing with the rest of the world however, we must have our own house in order, be it in the assertion of justice, or the creation of the Single Market Economy”.

I agree with those sentiments and I am sorely pained by the polluting of the justice system in our land, where the highest court had given a ruling on a matter on which a citizen had sought justice, but for years now our administrators have been flaunting their recklessness in refusing to comply with the court, the highest court in our system.

If our administrators are so indifferent to the fortifying of the integrity of our own institutions, how can they be entrusted and relied on for the pursuing of matters on the world stage, where we consider our rights to have been infringed. That indeed would be parallel to storing the baby’s feed in a bottle which you have recently drained of gramoxone, or administering medicine with a dirty syringe.

Sir James, in the foreword to his book, stated, “The steady pace of our development had made government look easy. A lapse in vigilance however can yield a loss of the most critical element in development: Time”.

I must express my strong disagreement, respectfully, on this matter. The most important element is not time, it is rather the integrity with which systems are applied to ensure that we, the custodians, pass on to the next generations our resources, to afford them a reasonable chance for successful living.

Incidentally, the Gonsalves administration, despite its exhibition sometimes of almost “raw ridicule”, has seemingly been following the Mitchell approach to development, i.e. – a lot of construction of edifices over a short “TIME”.

The agonies of that approach are well documented and will seemingly be burdening our land with challenging economic times for decades to come. Indeed, we are suffering the effects of what Sir James will say is a “lapse in vigilance”.

LeRoy Providence