Editorial
When business people buy their security
It only shows magnitude of corruption
The nation's top business leaders have just told us what we have always known. The only difference is that while no one has so far openly raised the subject in public, now it is the business community which has stepped forward with a revelation of the sordid story. Briefly, businesspersons are troubled by the fact that they often have to ensure the security of their lives and property by paying what is clearly ransom money in advance to powerful politicians. In simple terms, where business, like everything else in life, should be following a natural course, we have the spectacle before us of many in the business community being compelled to buy their protection through monetarily keeping the political classes happy. It is a practice that has gone on under every political dispensation.
There are now a couple of questions which come up here. In the first place, how do politicians, whose reputation in recent years has been sliding alarmingly in terms of morality and performance, explain themselves or extricate themselves from such a grave allegation coming from an influential section of society? In the second, why did these businesspeople, many of whom are today part of the political process itself through representation in parliament and in the political parties, take so long to reveal their fears and frustrations? It is intriguing that these allegations were made at a conference organised by youths who, quite naturally, will raise their own questions as to why our politicians need such questionable financial favours and why our businesspeople are unable to resist the pressures exerted on them.
The business community, in the course of voicing its concerns, has raised a third and pretty interesting thought. It relates to the emergence of a section of media which is there simply as a guarantee of protection for itself. That may be true, but what has also been a matter of worry for citizens is that a goodly part of such media happen to be there not only to ensure their own security but also to carry out campaigns of a scurrilous kind against people and institutions they do not approve of.
Corruption is thus today a deeply ingrained part of the socio-political system. And with such a system in place, this nation, any nation, finds the path to the future tortuous beyond measure.
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