Use of NICIL and the Constitution

Apr 05, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The two topical issues – the behaviour of NICIL and the extant deficiencies in and abuse of the constitution – trigger this comment.
It has been established that NICIL was the creation of Mr. Carl Grennidge. Mr. Grennidge and the party he represents, in hindsight, appear to disagree with the manner in which the finances that fall under the responsibility of this private government company are being utilized by the company’s representative or representatives.
The perceived loopholes in the constitution appear to have afforded those who were clothed with the mantle of the presidency to use all the privileges it seems to have afforded them. Thus far, they have been elusive in their accountability for their decisions.
Neither the designers of these instruments – the NICIL Act and the Constitution – nor those mandated to use their powers considered what it would have been like if the shoes were on the other feet. That understanding was only recognized and vilified after the fact.
This comment seeks not to align or vilify neither the designers nor the users but simply to bring to the attention of the public some concepts though founded in the social sciences are applicable to life and political life in particular.
The concept of bounded rationality states that decision makers (irrespective of their level of intelligence) have to work under three unavoidable constraints:
1. only limited, often unreliable, information is available regarding possible alternatives and their consequences;
2. human mind has only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available, and
3.only a limited amount of time is available to make a decision.
Therefore even individuals who intend to make rational choices are bound to make satisfying (rather than maximizing or optimizing) choices in complex situations.
These limits (bounds) on rationality also make it nearly impossible to draw up contracts that cover every contingency and thus necessitate reliance on rules of thumb.
The second concept is what Murphy’s Law advocates and that is if anything can go wrong it will.
According to Jim Camp, whose work I refer to as the third concept is that decisions are emotional, not logical.
Simply put, all decisions hold the possibility of producing unintended consequences and the decision maker/s must always consider potential positive and negative outcomes of their decisions especially if those decisions are made under the influence of a variety of emotional dispositions.
Hubert C. Roberts

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