Perhaps it was merely a momentary lapse. If not, the administration is in even deeper trouble than we imagined. So, too, would be Jamaica.

Although we might have squirmed in embarrassment, or maybe laughed at the absurdity that played out in Parliament, we perhaps would have admired Dean Peart's honesty. For however foolish he would seem in admitting that he did not know whether he was a member of the Cabinet in July 2001, this is far more refreshing than the self-righteousness of someone who would declare never to have smoked or taken strong drink and never to have lied, unless he apologised afterwards.

Unfortunately for Mr. Peart and the administration, while honesty is important to governance, so, too, is competence in the management of the people's affairs. In the latter regard, the Local Government Minister has hardly covered himself in glory - and certainly not in relation to the recent audit of the parish councils.

Earlier this year, Mr. Peart sent his ministry's internal auditors into a number of local government authorities to determine how they were spending taxpayers' money. Few people doubted that while this was perhaps a good thing to do, the assignment carried with it political undertones.

The central government was being accused by the Opposition of mismanagement and corruption and appeared to be paying a political price for this in declining political support. With most of the parish councils controlled by the Opposition, it might be in the political interest of the ruling party to demonstrate that there was mismanagement here too.

In recent weeks, Mr. Peart and his underlings have been touting the fact that parish councils were awarding contracts for jobs of over $100,000 without first going to competitive tender. But Mr. Peart was upstaged in Parliament by Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, with a declaration about a July 2001 Cabinet decision that lifted the threshold to $250,000. Except that Mr. Peart found the $250,000 threshold applied in only limited circumstances and sought to claw back some advantage. Therein lies his dilemma.

By admitting the existence of the higher threshold, even in limited circumstances, Mr. Peart has had to admit there were flaws in the premise on which his internal auditors conducted their review. Some of the contracts awarded by the parish councils would have been covered by the exemption clause.

But worse, Mr. Peart had to admit that his auditors did not know of the exemption and, we can assume, the circumstance in which it is applied. Mr. Peart himself did not know.

All that is bad enough, but made worse by the fact that the decision by the Cabinet was made several months after Mr. Peart became a full member - except that Mr. Peart did not know if he was a member. At least that is what he told Mr. Golding in Parliament on Tuesday.

"I am not sure. I am not sure. Honestly not sure. I don't want to tell you yes. I don't know," Mr. Peart said. We would have thought that being appointed a member of the Cabinet would be a seminal point in someone's life, one to be held dearly and remembered.

But perhaps Mr. Peart is overly tired. What of his colleagues?