Trinidad and Tobago: home of crab and callalloo, roti, bake and shark, Drs. Eric Williams and Rudranath Capildeo, steelband, Carnival, calypso, chutney, Midnight Robber, Peter Minshall, Sundar Popo, Soca Warriors, Brian Lara, Learie Constantine, Hasley Crawford, Marc Burns, Richard Thompson, Yannic Cariah, Mighty Sparrow, Quickit, Ato Boldon, Buccoo Reef, Maracas Bay, La Brea Pitch Lake, Asa Wright Nature Centre, UNC, COP and PNM!
So much talent...unable to master true 20/20 vision.
"...Speaking in Tacarigua on Monday [Sept 27, 2010], Rowley said the Government seemed
“more PNM than PNM” since the administration has kept so many PNM
programmes. ...Rowley said the PNM voted for the People’s Partnership 2010-2011 budget
since to have voted against it would be “playing stupid politics” and
would have affected PNM’s credibility as it was PNM plans in the
Government’s budget."
Could it be that what Rowley really meant is that the Public Service [which all know is PNM-dominated] is the real government?
It is now almost four months to the day since Kamla Persad-Bissessar has been elected and or appointed Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago! Yet, in nary a public building is her official portrait to be found. Why so is that?
By Peter O’Connor, for publication Sunday 19th September
2010.
We want it now! Whether it is money owing by the previous
administration, promotions ignored by the previous government, promises
unfulfilled by the PNM, or repairs or buildings never completed by the people
who should have completed them—we all want it all right now!
I have no doubt about the validity of all these claims being
made against the new government. I know that the PNM never paid local
contractors and consultants on time (even as the foreign firms were paid “up
front” before work started). I am confident that they owed pharmaceutical
suppliers millions for goods delivered, and I truly feel for all those persons
whose promotions were never ratified, whose pay increases lay languishing on
some PNM desk, and for the users of buildings still incomplete because the
previous government was absorbed with Waterfront, NAPA, Palace, Tarouba and the
Guanapo Church.
But you “took it” for years, folks. It is not now that your
bills are unpaid, that your increases are not ratified, or that your structures
stand incomplete. When the people who were responsible for your suffering and
your inconveniences were in power, you may have complained, but like you did
not dare to demand your rights. It looks like PNM abuse is something you were
prepared to tolerate forever, like some long suffering woman whose “man” will
consistently abuse and ignore her, and who was afraid to speak up and demand
what is rightfully hers.
But since the citizens of this country showed that they had
the courage and the power to remove the PNM from office, all of you who
suffered so long have suddenly found voice to actually threaten the new
government with “shut down” unless your demands and grievances are settled NOW!
And the strange thing is that the new government was not even aware of your
predicaments, and only discovered these huge debts and liabilities and
inefficiencies when they moved into office. They had to express their surprise,
as wave after wave of revelations of the PNM’s contempt for local contractors,
consultants, workers, and suppliers became known. The PNM certainly never
showed all of these debts in any balance sheets. In fact, Karen Teshiera denied
the debts to contractors—arrogantly so!
So, the rest of the population, and even those who shared the
PNM’s abuse with each other, must have felt a degree of sympathy for all those
who had been waiting on the PNM government for the monies owed to them. I feel
for you too, and I hope you all get paid, promoted and accommodated soon. But I
do not support you suddenly picking up a big stick and threatening to put “bus’
head” on the new government, and stop supplies, and work to rule and shut down
the country. Why you did not get on like this against the people who have you
suffering so today?
And it is not like this new government had nothing to do but
to attend to your claims-- claims which were not even known to them when they
came into office. Before they were even sworn into office the country was
inundated with flooding, another legacy of the neglect which the PNM imposed
upon us all. And while cleaning up the first floods, more came, and more
efforts had to be directed away from setting up office to support long
suffering citizens and businesses which were flooded again.
And they did something to restore a part of our democracy
which the PNM had denied us for years: They held local government elections.
Many of you may think this was not as important as paying you. But actually it
was, and it was a commitment they had given us. “Paying you” was not a
commitment, mostly because they were not aware that the PNM had not paid you.
I do not agree with some columnists—who should know
better—who are giving the new government deadlines to satisfy the columnists’
priorities. If the PNM were still around the Solomon Hochoy Highway would still
be a one-lane road where those sinkholes collapsed some weeks ago, with Imbert
bleating about “Acks of Gord”.
So check who is in the background for each of the causes
demanding retribution NOW. You will find that, just as they did in 1987, agents
and provocateurs of the PNM are promoting issues apparently on your behalf. But
if they cared about you, you would not be in this position today. You stood up
in May and found the courage to remove the people who had abused you from
office. Do not let them dupe you now into sabotaging the very change you had
voted for.
Wake up, T&T, the PNM is using you to fight their
tabanca. Do not be fooled.
'CITIZENS are getting
tired of the "flam and emptiness" of the People's Partnership
Government and have begun to grumble, said St Ann's East MP Joanne
Thomas...
She cautioned the Government that citizens were watching with a "lizard's eye".'
I pray to God that Joanne's not a familial relative of
mine ---those whose genes I share aren't as aloof as PNMites, by and
large, are.
I thank God that, yet again, evidence is openly
presented of how PNMites regards the citizens of Trinbago ---only a
zandolie could watch anything with a lizard's eye.
Whatever congratulations I might extend to my brethren [Andy Johnson
and Clevon Raphael, regarding their new positions, respectively, as CEO
of GISL and Special Adviser to the AG], I must temper with a tinge of
sadness, for journalism in Trinidad and Tobago will be much poorer for
their mutations. So! Andy! Clevon! It's up to you: to add lustre to my
encomia. You will so augment if the same independence and fearlessness
you used in your long and illustrious career are now applied in your
alter egos.
Bless!
