Spare Us the Drama…

Once again, the Minister of Housing Honorable Michael Finnegan wants us to believe that he stands on the moral high ground; that he alone is the moral compass of Belizean politics and everybody else is morally bankrupt.  It is as if he wears a halo and is an avenger of the downtrodden like his namesake the archangel.

This time around, Finnegan’s crusade is in defense of Dawn Jorgenson, a single mother of his Mesopotamia Constituency, who has fallen victim to the suspected crooked behavior of Minister of National Security Hon. Carlos Perdomo and his conspirator/s at Hon. Gaspar Vega’s corruption plagued Ministry of Natural Resources.

Finnegan is incensed because Jorgenson’s lease to a parcel of land in Perdomo’s Caribbean Shores Constituency, which has been in her family since the 1960s, was cancelled without notification and awarded to a ‘more deserving’ person by Vega in August 2009 on Perdomo’s recommendation.  And shockingly, the person has already secured full title to the land.

All this underhandedness took place in spite of the fact that Jorgenson had obtained a $5,000 purchase price to secure her title in 2005 from the previous People’s United Party administration.  At the time, she did not have the money to pay the sum in full.  As a result, she had been making payments to the Ministry of Natural Resources as she could afford and that is allowed for in the purchase price agreement.  According to her, the last payment was made at the end of July 2009.

For this reason, Finnegan brought down his wrath publicly on his two Cabinet colleagues for their alleged malfeasance.  On national television last Thursday, he fumed “Christ dah sin …  Yu get elected as wah politician to serve di poor people, especially di indigent … and di poor single mothers …  Yu no get elected fi squeeze and fu squash dehn and fu tek weh weh dehn got from dehn.  I will not stand for it …  It is not only unfair, it is illegal”  You think!

Although we wholeheartedly agree that an injustice has been visited upon Jorgenson and her family by Perdomo and Vega, it is impossible to take Finnegan’s chest pounding seriously because his words oftentimes ring hollow and they leave us with the feeling that our faith was misplaced.  It is disgusting to say the least.

The abuse of power and injustices, such as the cancellation of leases and the firing of single mothers committed against poor people on the mere suspicion of political opposition since the United Democratic Party took office in 2008 has been constant and deliberate.  Yet, Finnegan has scarcely uttered a word in their defense perhaps because he views them as what Prime Minister Hon. Dean Barrow coined “collateral damage.”

Suddenly, day to day transactions conducted at the Ministry of Natural Resources now require monetary kickbacks before they can be processed by public officers.  Good luck at the Ministry if you do not have cash in hand.  Meanwhile, the cancellation of leased lands for redistribution to favored UDP supporters at the behest of area representatives and land speculation for personal enrichment have become de rigueur in the higher ranks perhaps as way up as Vega.

And Finnegan’s Cabinet loitering partner in front of Brad’s Store located at the Belize Farmers’ Market Minister of Education Hon. Patrick Faber has fired hundreds of single mothers just because in his words he can “get away with certain things politically.”  But this is unconscionable because the majority of these single mothers were barely getting by to clothe, educate, feed, and shelter their children on the minimum wage salary of a school warden.

Injustice by any other name is still injustice, Finnegan.  Thus, the real outrage here is his fake, self righteous indignation, which is always on display, especially in the media, whenever it is politically expedient for him to do so.  After all, he only took up Jorgenson’s case because she is one of his avowed supporters and maybe he could not bully his Cabinet colleagues in private to right their wrongs.

But we have grown weary of the political moralizers and the self righteous, who rant and rave about all manner of corruption, but appear not to have a mirror.  It is clear that they usually have the most to hide and their personal morality is generally the opposite of their public stance.  Therefore, stop throwing stones and spare us the drama, Finnegan.  In the end, self righteous politicians are of particular concern to us because they often turn out to be hypocrites.

From his track record, Finnegan has demonstrated that he is not truly committed to rooting out corruption and only pays lip service to transparency and accountability in government.  No wonder that he is such a pal to holier than thou PM Barrow.  And it may come to pass that the misdeeds of his two Cabinet colleagues may eventually pale in comparison to his own.  As such, he hardly represents a standard against which anybody should be judged.

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