Dear Editor,
From the time I know myself, my father always stressed on us to tell the truth. And another thing he would remind us of when looking over our schoolwork and he found some mistakes was: “Why is there enough time to do it twice over and not enough time to do it once good?”
This is what ran through my mind in reading about the financial situation given by the finance Minister a few days ago. The second saying is self-explainable, but anytime anyone does not tell the truth from the beginning it creates doubt in a whole lot of minds.
And the term trustworthy and reliable comes into play. The minister comes back and says I didn’t mean it that way, but maybe next three months, though we still don’t have to panic And then my question still remains: if the situation does not change in three months then what?
I am sure that the minister knew about those figures that he mentioned for a long time now, so why sow panic in people first and then try to say it is not that bad. I am sure that especially restaurant owners are going to feel the backlash from that statement because people who are accustomed to eating out are going to do their own cooking to save that restaurant bill.
That explanation, frankly speaking, is not satisfying to me. I believe the people deserve the real truth. We are already in an emergency mode and now we are being put in a panic mode and being told not to worry.
I believe that all of instances which are playing around with financial figures should get together, come to the people and explain to the people the truth. We are no more living in the era of teletype, this is the era of Facebook and Photoshopping. We have to re- acquire a sense of confidence from the people towards us so that they could revert to believing in us.
This is definitely not the time for planting doubt in people’s minds. And it is not the time for leaving anyone out to dry. I believe that we have to use tact, but the truth is going to catch up with us anyhow so let us know the real truth.
Talking about the truth, I was told that it is not the screening, it is a fight for the crown and a “he say she say” thing. One of them say that men don’t wear crowns men does wear caps and they went on to say “over my dead body” and the other one answer “that is right up my alley” and then another say “throw dirt over that man.”
So again we have to start telling the people the truth.
Russell A. Simmons
