You know, it not nice to kick a dead dog… well, in this case, a man when he is down.
But the goodly father of the flocks, Henry Charles, former Chairman Extraordinaire of the Integrity Commission who proved to have less Integrity than some of the people he was to have investigated, has that zeppy following him still. I wonder if the said zeppy is a thing that attaches only to those following the PNM, or politicians in general?
Anyway, turns out that he didn’t copy just twice… eagle eyes have revealed yet more instances of plagiarising. Okay, so now this is a habitual thing it seems. As the last paragraph in that link says:
If once is mistake and twice, habit, would three times be standard operational procedure? What does this reveal about the integrity of Mr Charles?
Still on this topic though, last night, in one of my frequent non-sleep episodes, I got to thinking about Max and this Integrity Commission.
The Prez (Max, people) has made three rather startling mistakes, one which is entirely unforgivable which I will come to.
- Promising a position (Deputy Chairman) to Justice Zainool Hosein, the reneging on his word, but not informing the man of the change and thus embarrassing him at the swearing in ceremony. Now, we know this changed after the Wednesday meeting with Papa-tricks where he (Papa-tricks) admitted that they discussed ‘matters of state’. This comes under matters of state in case people did not know. Note however, Papa-tricks has not openly denied that they did not speak of the Integrity Commission, a precaution lest Max opens his gob and admits they did perhaps.Still on Thursday, Max confirms via telephone to Zainool he was still in the Commission, but does not mention the change in position, which happens the next day. Easy to follow the timeline and discern that there has been political interference.
- Max appointed Jeffrey McFarlane to the Commission, a man who was not qualified to hold the post. Now, anyone can argue that Max did not know… bullshit! Max has a battery of legal advisers at his beck and call, among them the ‘champion of the constitution’ Ellis Clarke, if only in an advisory capacity. Okay, so an illegal appointment is made, but is compounded by the appointment of this person in the post of Deputy Chairman, in place of Zainool Hosein.
- The most glaring error, and the one that ought to force Max to resign, is that he knew about Father Charles indiscretions. As Father Charles himself said, he confessed to Max before he was sworn in. Unlike the confessional booth, in this instance, confession does not mean saying Hail Marys and being automatically forgiven. Having done several degrees, Charles is a student of many years note and having studied at top universities he knows how the system works. To make matters worse, Max comes from an academic background, having held a high position at UWI, where plagiarism might be condoned but is still not legal. Therefore, no excuse about it, Max should know better! Thus leaving one with the idea that Max has knowing embarrassed his office, himself and the entire country. For that, he should be sacked forthwith.
To my mind there is something odd about Max being on vacation at this time. As they said of Occah Seepaul once, “you can run but you cant hide”, Max. This is a crisis that disrepute you personally and your office officially. Come back home and sort it out.
But since we know Trinis in high positions love to jump and wine (none more than Max who is always on the front pages of the media) and have skins like crapaud leather we can expect Max to sit there till we get blue in the face calling for his resignation/removal. Only in Monkey Island, folks.
