Too many government officials consider any criticism of their performance as criticism of the state or as a personal attack on them. When the government selects an official to serve in a position, it expects the officials to demonstrate their ability and prove to everyone that they are indeed capable of doing the job and leading their departments to achieve high rates of success.
Instead of showing tolerance by listening to criticism and appreciating the need for change, many officials keep singing the same old song: If you criticize a government official, you are criticizing the government and giving the enemies of the country ammunition to use against us all.
This is absurd and it is tragic to see how far some people will go to justify their actions. If the officials are really afraid that opportunists and opponents are watching them, waiting for a mistake in order to attack them, why don’t they simply do the right thing and avoid any ambiguous or suspicious behavior.
If they did that, there would be no grounds for anyone attacking them. These people must understand that when the state appoints them to their positions and asks them to act responsibly, it expects them to rise to the challenges of the position. The state also expects the media to serve as an all-seeing eye through which the rights and entitlements of the public are respected and protected.
The officials who turn government bodies and offices into private property which serves them and their relatives want the media to turn a blind eye to their financial and administrative irregularities, claiming that if these were exposed, the foreign media would utilize the information to undermine the country. The officials want the media to serve as a public relations office attached to their departments, only publishing good news while totally ignoring any shortcomings and failures.
This is the extremely shortsighted attitude of some who always seek to use their influence to muzzle the press, blindly leading it where they want it to go while using the foreign media as a threat to make others think twice before exposing their mistakes.
Let us put all our cards on the table and subject all government bodies to thorough investigations, opening their financial records and enabling the press to play its role in exposing administrative failures and the plundering of public money. Accountability should spare no one.
Arab News From the Local Press 21 October 2003
