LACK OF INFORMATION DANGEROUS

OUR erstwhile premier once told people to scream when they were forced to do something illegal by someone senior to them. This was advice given to the former registrar of the High Court during the last days of the former chief justice.

What reminded me about this is a question I read that was posed to the clerk to Parliament by a member of the PAC. He was asked if he reported to anyone that certain parliamentary officers were abusing their powers and forcing him not to follow procedure. This, to me, clearly meant he should have involved others and not hide what was happening. He should have given the information out so that he would be afforded assistance.

How I wish our parliamentarians were able to walk the talk and pass laws that will allow the public to get information from government with ease. If that could be done, a lot of things would not get to a stage where there is huge damage before they are corrected. Parliament would not have overspent so much because the clerk would have provided that information early, that something was wrong.

But for the secrecy that exists in our government, resources were misused and the taxpayer will now foot the bill. How much have we lost as a country because of the secrecy in government as this is not the only case? If government was open with information, the run-ins with civil servants would not have been there.

This opinion is informed by the fact that civil servants would have known a long time ago that government had no money in its coffers. But, because of the secrecy, that information was hidden until civil servants started demanding a salary increment.

If government was not secretive, I am sure they would not have demanded an increment because they would have known that there was no money for such. But instead, government kept it a secret as usual and behaved as if there was money because of the way it was doing things. Issuing information would have helped and the engagements with representatives of the civil servants would have been different. But like the clerk to Parliament, government kept this a secret until it was pushed into a corner and only then did it mention the economic challenge. It even failed to tell its suppliers but only came out when there were no drugs in hospitals.

If a lesson would be learnt by government from this, it would be not to repeat the mistake again. Government should notice that not giving information leads to catastrophes. Going on without informing people about its true position has been government’s problem in the past but it did not learn from it.

We have heard government, time and again, complaining that certain individuals were not giving the true account of the country. People tend to reach wrong conclusions because our government is not giving out information and they make their own conclusions. Without any information, wrong conclusions will be reached and government will then be forced to do damage control and waste a lot of time and resources on something that would have been prevented.

Everyone these days is worried about the economy of the country and wish we could turn it around. Sometimes I wonder if government realises why the blame is placed squarely on its steps?

If government was open with information, surely those versed with accounts would have noticed that something was wrong and would have made suggestions even before we got to this alarming level. If we had all known that government had made a budget for money that it did not have, I am sure there would have been advice that we were heading towards the wrong direction and it would have taken the necessary steps to prevent this problem from occurring.

It is not surprising though that our government has continued with the way it does things even though it wants to tax its citizens to death. I may sound unfair but I think it’s true. If you do not believe me ask yourself if we as taxpayers know how the huge amount allocated to security forces is used? I know that it would be said that it would place the security of the country at risk, but there is information that should be given out but not all the details.

What is wrong with knowing the number of the security forces personnel because that does not reveal who is doing what but just numbers? That we are paying 10 employees at UEDF does not mean all of them are soldiers, so the number reveals nothing. Such information should be given. That is just an example. If we do not have the information, wrong conclusions will be  reached and this is dangerous.

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