MORE than anyone else in society, politicians should be able to appreciate the importance of retaining a few shreds of credibility in their bag of tricks. They should be able to understand that everything they do must be prefaced by due diligence and that failure to do so can only end in profound embarrassment.

More dangerously, a society that can't trust its leaders is bound to end up face down in failure, sooner or later.

For when trust goes, it usually takes the rationale for co-operation with it.

And when that essential co-operation dissipates, it will inevitably be replaced by the progeny of social disorder, namely crime, destruction and ultimately, death.

That this is the case all over Jamaica today is indisputable.

The merest glance at the news is illustrative.

Take the dramatic tragedy that is, and indeed has for a long time been Haiti, and the various attempts to help the survivors of last week's terrible earthquake.

Even as the international community jumped to the assistance of a country that some of its most prolific members are responsible for wrecking, scams featuring those who would line their pockets at the expense of other people's misery blossomed, making an already impossible situation even more so. We call no names.

Closer home, the spectacles of the Opposition People's National Party's (PNP's) embarrassing parliamentary performance, the Finsac Enquiry and the Pound Hill electricity scandal in North East St Elizabeth further highlight the mess.

According to Mrs Portia Simpson Miller, leader of the PNP, the party's decision not to participate in a debate it made a great show of insisting upon two weeks before Parliament reconvened, is tenable.

Listen to the reasoning.

Although they were ready to start 'defending the people's business' two weeks ago, now they need more time to deliberate as the information they got from the Government was too much and too late.

What would they have done if the Government had taken them up on their demand for the debate two weeks ago?

Wouldn't they have had to listen and then present their concerns just the same?

Why should anyone listen to them or the Government -- whose expenditure on an enquiry indicates that it is still in squandering mode.

Finally, we come to Mr Kern Spencer, the member of parliament for North East St Elizabeth.

According to yesterday's edition of our sister title, the Observer West, this gentleman -- who is staring down multiple corruption charges in connection with the Cuban light bulb scandal -- promised his constituents electricity, of all the ironies, three years ago.

Today, they're still in the dark.

And, sadly, so are we.

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