Commess T&T style

Too much of fussing and 
fighting
Too much of petty scrambling
Too much of damn disunity
Too much of dishonesty!

Too Much, Black Stalin 2013

Events of the past week. You could not write this in a novel. You could not make it up. No one would believe you. The Sunday Guardian started off the week with a bang! One of the commissioners of the inquiry into a key event in our history was probably a fraud. Mama mia! This is a gentleman who claimed to be so many things that that alone should have raised doubts about his CV. 

So much “consultant” and “senior adviser” for this and that, accompanied by obvious name dropping: US Senate, Pentagon, stint as chief administrator of NATO; special adviser (if you follow football in T&T, you accustom to that one) to at least 13 countries; affiliation to and administrator for this and that; a whole set of medal; co-founder of something called the Wounded Warrior, which Wikipedia knows nothing about; a doctorate from the type of university that you buy your degree from; references from dead people and people with big position who never existed, and the man still refuse to resign.

After two years of sittings, for a juicy daily salary, the Guardian was brought to ask, “Who exactly is Mohammed? No one seems to know.” What a thing! For two years no one, including the Government, the other commissioners and the press, had thought to check up on this mystery man’s credentials. What a jokey country! Pathetic really!

That seemed to be the order of the day as the inquiry proceeded, without one commissioner. Prime Minister Robinson’s bodyguard thought nothing of it when he noticed the Musilmeen “training and marking Robinson from the Twin Towers and along the Priority Bus Route.”

He never reported these observations to anyone senior because “everybody knew” and it did not cause him to become more alert regarding “protecting the PM.” With a bodyguard like that, who needs enemies? What impressed this goodly gentleman was when “plenty birds started attacking the Prime Minister’s car” the day of the coup. “It was a clear sign.” Of what? That the car was dirty or somebody had thrown corn on it?

This tale would be unbelievable were it not for the fact that this man lost his foot trying to defend Robinson. Scarcely any better was the declaration by the former acting clerk of the House, Mr Raphael Cumberbatch, who claimed that the then Speaker of the House, Nizam Mohammed, “tried to arrange for the landing of a Libyan aircraft during the attempted overthrow of the Government by the Musilmeen,” some of whom who, it has been reported, had apparently received armed training in Libya. 

This startling piece of news has been greeted by silence by everybody including Mr Mohammed. Whilst this kangkalang was taking place, another confusion erupted over vaccines and we were treated to the unaccustomed picture of a visitor to these shores, the British High Commissioner no less, who, given the scarcity of fast bowlers in T&T, sees nothing unusual about leaving his wicket and lecturing us on any subject under the sun, including medical matters. 

This well-learned medical commentator gave us the full benefit of his medical opinion about the HPV vaccine, which some believe is a First World plot to sterilise Third World peoples. Never fear. Responding to him was another defender of the faith, UWI lecturer Noel Kallicharan, with horror stories of his own about the same vaccine, this time culled expertly from that reliable source of medical material, the Internet.

We confidently await the advice of the Minister of National Security, one of the many British QCs on the island, former directors of Clico and the mayor of Port-of-Spain in this matter. In the meanwhile, prisoners, policemen, prison officers and court staff, including note takers and magistrates, were being inoculated against chickenpox after some courts were closed down by an outbreak of chickenpox at the State Prison, Port-of-Spain and at Golden Grove.

Will the chickenpox vaccine, available in T&T since 2000, continue to be administered to new prisoners, new guards, new police and so on? How come the lawyers did not get chickenpox or the vaccine? They not in court too? By the way, have the members of the T&T cricket team been inoculated against chickenpox? Have you?

The week ended with news that the National Insurance Board is hoping for a government bailout of $625 million owed it by CIB. The question of why NIB put $625 million into CIB between 2008 and 2009 at a time when the bank was on the brink of collapse was raised and left unanswered, like most things these days. Too much, too much and now another commess about the special squad is about to blow up. Rudder has the last word:

It doh matter if yuh have a degree
Long as yuh greedy and ah lil chupeedee,
Yuh cud crawl into somebody pocket and agree,
Cause it’s bigger pimping in T&T Land of the Pimps

Bigger Pimping, David Rudder 2001