Take a stand today

Oct 20, 2008

If I were superstitious, I might conclude like many people I have spoken with in various communities that the Prime Minister has sold the young souls of the nation to keep the nation blind and ignorant so as to stay in power. But, as a rational human being, I cannot entertain such thoughts.

Instead, I have conclude that the Prime Minister and his team are either grossly incompetent or adopt the more cynical conclusion that they are using crime and other misadventures in the age old technique of smoke and mirrors politics to divert attention from the pilferage and mismanagement of the economy. Neither scenario is acceptable although the latter is far less so.

Government, like universal existence, takes place at many different levels. There is what is seen and there is what is unseen, there is the obvious and there is the mischief behind the scenes. Scientists have discovered that what is unseen is in far greater quantity than what is seen and I suspect it is the same for government.

On the most basic level of our consciousness, that which is put in our face daily, the Prime Minister and his team seem to be running Trinidad and Tobago like a failed investment bank. There seems to be the same level of arrogance, wild spending, lack of accountability, lack of regard for its customers (in this case citizens), no clear vision or plan for the sustainable growth and development of the nation AND there are widespread suggestions that the executives of this team have millions stored away in foreign bank accounts and homes spread across the globe just like executives from failed investment banks.

As a result of either scenario inflation is skyrocketing and so the cost of the living for ordinary citizens is getting higher and higher as their salaries more or less remain the same. In other words as the nation’s prosperity reaches unbelievable heights, the majority of citizens are getting poorer.

Food inflation, which does not form part of the government’s core inflation figures, is reported by the Central Bank to be 21.8% year on year. Yet to date the government have failed to get agriculture going in Trinidad and Tobago in any meaningful way. The local farmers are constantly being neglected, their crops are flooded out year on year and the government continues to promise mega farms as the solution whilst the majority of ordinary citizens catch their nen nen. One might be tempted to say that this is another smoke and mirrors political tactic when we look at what has been spent in agriculture.

Getting back to the main issue however, every year for the past 6 years the national security budget has been significantly increased. The citizens have heard promises of gun boats, gun helicopters and we occasionally see a blimp hanging in the sky. We have been told that the government know how many gangs are operating and that they have intelligence as to who are the members of these gangs. Years ago, the Prime Minister got up in Parliament and announced that he knew who Mr. Big was, but to date he remains a mystery to the population. The Minister of National Security promises every time he speaks that things will get better. But year on year the crime figures rise, a new record murder rate is set every year. This year the murder rate is moving faster than Usain Bolt.    

No one seems to be safe in Trinidad or Tobago anymore and we have to wonder if this will be the legacy we will leave for our children if they should survive, or will we as citizens finally say enough is enough. As far as I am concerned enough came a long time ago, so the question will be for the nation as to what for you is enough, 1,000 murders per year or 10,000 murders per year?

Citizens are being murdered on the streets, in their homes, at their work places, in bars and restaurants. Do we as a people find this acceptable?

Whilst brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins and friends are gunned down the government embroils itself with what can only be described as smoke and mirror politics.

Whose agenda is being served when the Prime Minister gets up in Parliament and accuses a former Cabinet Minister in his administration of misappropriating $10 million?

Whose agenda is being served when the government insist on wanting to spend between $100 million and $200 million in vehicles to impress foreign dignitaries over a two week period? Already ministries are littered with $500,000.00 vehicles to deliver mail.

The government have spent billions on the waterfront project, who gets to use these facilities? Not the ordinary man in the street. Yet community facilities all around the country that ordinary citizens have access to remain run down and dilapidated.

Surely we are not so blind that we cannot see our nation deteriorate before our very eyes. Obviously we hear the utterances of arrogance that fall from the lips of Cabinet Ministers that show them being clearly out of touch with our most basic needs. Listening to the radio, we clearly understand our rights as citizens and the power that we hold.

We can achieve nothing however if we do not awake from our slumber. We are not being protected by those charged with the duty to protect us, our lives are being made harder by those we have entrusted to take care of us, but we have the power to change this.

Don’t let party loyalty get in the way of family loyalty. After all your representative will not put your needs before his own.

Take a stand today.

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