Dear Editor,

Permit me a handful of quick questions on this latest farce from the PPP concerning its own ‘integrity commission.’

Does the PPP not know that the first qualification for members of any integrity commission is that they must be untainted by even suspicion, that they must be ethically impeccable?  Is the PPP ignorant, or contemptuous, of the fact that secrecy as to the membership of any integrity commission is self-defeating and renders any such commission laughable on its very face and before its birth?  Further, is it that the governing party does not know that self-investigation (like the Guyana Police Force/Service) lacks credibility, gains no traction, and goes nowhere?  That such self-policing aims to dilute, minimize, and cover-up?   And that the primary aim is to make issues and people disappear?

Last, if this is what suffices as an integrity commission in the eyes and mind of the PPP, then all I can say to one and all is: carry on.  I am reminded of that wondrous Roman Emperor Caligula who is reported to have made his horse Incitatus a consul.  Here Guyanese have a whole stable of such emperors engaging in similar equine promotions, of which the latest is this integrity commission.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall