Allow me to make a brief observation on the above subject. By and large, the Leader of Opposition have very valid substance in his argument that such a legislation as intended by the Integrity Bill would create a mechanism for corruption and dictatorship. In the absence of strong, practical and implementable political party policies and plans, the argument stands to be valid and justifiable.

Quite justifiably, such a legislation would not by any means address the governance pitfalls in our system of government or governance as the platform to build such intentions on is clearly deficient or nonexistent within our political landscape.

By this I mean the primary area of priority to start an overhauling process of our system is at the voting level - hence our voting pattern. Once and when this aspect of the process is refined to be resolutely based on policies, principles of good & smart governance, smart (as oppose to dumb) economic growth strategies to name a couple then we could see significant improvement in leadership that is not susceptible to corruption even without an Integrity legislation. At a glance, I can only deduce and be ill-mannered to observe that voting pattern is severely distorted to embrace vote-casting based on personal gains and favors, blood ties, narrowly-prescribed development programs or worse still, empty promises. Such pattern of voting practices that has evolved with our people could somewhat be attributed to the tolerance of intending candidates to entertain such vote-pinching approaches.

Thus, to address the political dirt downstream, a rigid approach need to be installed upstream or better still at the source.

How can this be achieved? Strengthening of political party policies to ensure a standard policy-based messages are preached to People by candidates. This will instill policy-based voting criteria in our system hence holding parties accountable based on their deliverable. Integrity is hereby in-built rather than legislated, which may will reflect true good governance (as oppose to ordinary governance).