Dear Editor,

How quickly the sheen wears off, the gloss of respectability, the veneer of democracy.

Like the gold-plated idols of our gods, the lacquer peels away and reveals the cheap metal beneath. This is the fate of our so-called representatives, our elected officials, who stand before us, grinning and posturing, until the cracks in their armour become too wide to conceal.

How does our nation begin to unravel the tangled web that has enveloped the Integrity Commission of Jamaica? This so-called watchdog meant to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability has become a toothless lion, beholden to the whims of the political elite which it was meant to police. What use are the commission’s grand legal mandates and investigative powers when the very Parliament that birthed it seeks to hobble and muzzle it?

The Integrity Commission was meant to be the bulwark against the creeping rot, the guardian of our democratic ideals. But alas, it has been crippled through lawfare, its noble purpose subverted by those it was meant to rein in, so they keep reigning. Like a gagged and blindfolded watchman, the commission sits impotently.

With an annual budget of over $1 billion, the Integrity Commission ought to produce more. The commissioners are well paid in comparison to the many public servants who have to meet greater targets. The focus cannot just be on the gag clause preventing them from executing certain responsibilities.

What hope is there, then, for the ordinary Jamaican, the farmer struggling to eke out a living, the teacher underpaid and overworked, the youth with dreams of a better future? They look to the Integrity Commission and see only the reflections of their own powerlessness, their own despair.

Ours is a country in which the mighty feasts on the crumbs of the powerless, in which the wealthy and well-connected craft the rules to suit their whims. And we, the citizens, are expected to avert our eyes, to murmur our acquiescence lest we be crushed beneath the weight of their privilege.

But we will not be silenced, not this time. We will raise our voices, louder and more insistent, until the halls of power tremble with the force of our demands: for integrity, for transparency, for a Government that truly serves the people, not the elite.

Let us stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and reclaim the promise of a democracy that has been so grievously betrayed.

Yannick Nesta Pessoa

yannickpessoa@yahoo.com