This column has never claimed authority on shark and bake. However, we know what a mulligan in golf is-taking a shot over and over in the hope that the ball will end up where it was originally intended.
After every missed shot the player apologises and promises to get it right next time. But by the time they get to the next hole for the second drive the ball jumps off the tee, flies left and ends in the cabrada (ravine).
The People's Partnership Government is showing deep signs of mulligan syndrome: Missing the ball more often than not and with great bravado sending messages to the country which are downright perplexing. Although making some progress, the Government seems overburdened, with mediocrity going off in every direction with no compass. In a situation which certainly does not warrant either as priority or is urgently necessary, Caribbean Airlines is to be upgraded to international routes, going into debt for much larger and expensive equipment to begin flying a direct Trinidad-London and Kingston-London on subsidised fuel. CAL has also taken Liat routes.
You start first with $2 million for Soca Monarch, a competition which is the most obscene form of lascivious behaviour that certainly does not warrant public money. Then there is the $7 billion highway to nowhere, supposedly to produce thousands of jobs. Left out is the fact that there is a loan with tough conditionalities while highways are no longer built by labourers. The contract price for the road will go to South America and the use of large machinery.
So having missed so many balls and hit so many into the bush, what do you do for an encore? There is an old saying that you cannot make lard unless you kill a few pigs. Spending millions for Carnival stands is certainly not a priority. Minister Gypsy has not yet recognised that Carnival is no longer an expression of excellence in art and culture. It has become nothing more than a naked "shake your bum" product of the devil's loins. The National Academy for the Performing Arts is not a calypso tent.
Getting his Prime Minister to embrace the Soca Monarch will not elevate the Partnership from where it has fallen. The fact that he and Jack have hijacked the Government and put Mr Dookeran to sleep will all eventually come out in the wash. What all of this is doing, is giving the impression to the people of no sense of certainty, security and control by the Government. The bulls are roaming through the shop at will. Recent incidents make the people believe that the system has moved to a state of what's next.
Notwithstanding the wasteful spending enumerated above, we hear of promises of $5,000 for prisoners leaving jail-yes, the same ones that are piling up the crime statistics. Pay for your funeral if you died in an accident or you can burn down an HDC house and get a new one.
Millions for Carnival stands that are not necessary because roads are already made for that. And as for police, public servants, teachers and prison officers? You will have to catch the eyes of Jack and Gypsy before the next mulligan. The police, whose performance no one can vouch for, have already been blasted by the Prime Minister so it is not a damn cent more for them. And as for the others, don't hold your breath.
THOUGHTS
Spending millions for Carnival stands is certainly not a priority. Minister Gypsy has not yet recognised that Carnival is no longer an expression of excellence in art and culture.