By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
‘Fell off the back of a truck.‘ Looked it up and it says it is an idiom, which refers to something stolen, something obtained illegally and often sold at a large discount.
If those Customs and Revenue papers were indeed found on the side of the road as reported, surely it was not placed there for some innocent passersby to stumble on.
What we know are the papers were in bags at the back of two pickup trucks on their way to be buried at the Tafaigata landfill.
If those papers were lying on the side of the road then they must have ‘fell off the back of the truck.’
Mystery solved. No need to employ the brilliant investigative mind of Sherlock Holmes.
But we now have a larger mystery with those same office papers.
All who were part of the dumping process reportedly buried all the bags, so how did the papers that were in them ended up on social media?
Were the bags actually buried? If they were who dug them up again? Why the maximum exposure on social media? Is there an intended target for the incriminating evidence if any were found?
These are the puzzling questions the added mystery of the snatched Government confidential rubbish papers is leaving many of us in a twist.
Sherlock Holmes is unavailable to investigate so our crack police investigators are called in.
Now we wait and hold our breath for our mystery to be solved.
But patience is not a virtue for everyone unless you are destined for sainthood. How can anyone sit still when there are so many ‘stories’ to pester the poor ears and drive the curiousity wild?
The one that gets the imagination going is when the rubbish bags digger allegedly dropped off the fruits of his/her labour to a waiting car.
From the car to the social media is where the mystery deepens.
We only learnt about the prized rubbish when photographed papers appeared on Facebook where ‘everything goes.’
Have to agree with the HRPP caucus secretary Lealailepule that as caretaker Government they were obviously the target of all the covert movements to retrieve the contents of the rubbish bags.
To dig them up again is taking it to the extreme. The question is who will stand to gain the most from going to all that trouble for a few bags of rubbish?
Surely the ‘paper digger’ got a few crisp notes as reward out of the shovel work! But that’s not even peanuts compared to what the person who drove off with the bags was after.
Again as Lealailepule said “ c’mon, bring it on, lets see what you got.’
So the rewards appear to suggest the whole objective is political. Makes one wonders who would gain politically from rubbing the HRPP face in the mud?
A more worrying concern is the frightening level our yearn for political power has dropped and where the consequences will leave us.
Hard to remember when our politics sank this low to the point of criminal intentions and actions.
What can be worse than having to stoop to this low extreme to win the upper hand on a political rival and power to rule?
Do we want to take this disturbing path as a legacy for our future generations to follow as normal and acceptable?
If absolute power corrupts absolutely then are we not well on our way there already?
What if the next time it is not rubbish bags we bury? What if they are the bodies of loved ones whose graves will be desecrated by uncaring body snatchers for political purposes.
Shocking and shameful yes but what can be more evil than to be blinded by an all consuming thirst for political power?
Please Lord do not let us go there.
Caught in the middle are the unfortunate Customs and Inland Revenue staff members.
If they deserve blame for all this, then it is the innocence of doing their job unaware of being preyed on by hungry circling vultures of scheming politics.
All they want is a sniff of a good smear feed to drive more winning dirt in their ambition to rule.
All government employees are at risk of being sacrificed as pawns on a political chessboard when and if it suits a purpose in these clandestine players’ bigger plan for power.
Word of advice to our public servants, be wary pedestrians at a road crossing. It is not enough just to look both ways first but to anticipate the stealth of a swopping vulture.
They will snatch you or your job away as they did with those ‘rubbish bags’ in their hunger for political rule.
Lord help us deal with these loathsome, shadowy, political creatures.