When there is a prob­lem we should get in the habit of ad­dress­ing pre­cise­ly what the prob­lem is. Too of­ten we seem to try to find ways to cir­cum­vent the prob­lem or fo­cus on symp­toms rather than the cause, even­tu­al­ly cre­at­ing more prob­lems and leav­ing the orig­i­nal prob­lem un­re­solved.

An ex­am­ple of this ap­proach can be seen with the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty and the walkover. For years I have been won­der­ing why those in au­thor­i­ty do not meet with them and dis­cuss a re­lo­ca­tion plan which would not place the res­i­dents at a dis­ad­van­tage. Of course, there will be op­po­si­tion and dis­trust, but if there is a gen­uine at­tempt to reach out com­bined with an el­e­ment of char­i­ty, I think it might be fruit­ful. This, to me, is the heart of the prob­lem–that there is a set­tle­ment in an area which was nev­er meant for ur­ban dwelling. Adding in­fra­struc­ture to ap­prox­i­mate civilised liv­ing could nev­er be a so­lu­tion.

An­oth­er ex­am­ple of il­log­i­cal prob­lem-solv­ing can be found with the ap­proach to crime and the po­lice ser­vice. Clear­ly there is a man­age­ment prob­lem in the po­lice ser­vice which ex­tends to the ju­di­cia­ry, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the Pris­ons Ser­vice and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. Ob­vi­ous­ly, there­fore, the so­lu­tion lies with ad­dress­ing that spe­cif­ic prob­lem. In­stead, we em­bark on ad­ven­tures ad­vo­cat­ing a par­al­lel or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Fly­ing Squad, and hang­ing as the so­lu­tions. It would be fun­ny if it were not so sad that some­thing so ob­vi­ous seems to es­cape con­sec­u­tive ad­min­is­tra­tions and very bright lu­mi­nar­ies too. Have we ever heard of a po­lice of­fi­cer be­ing fired? I can­not re­call ever hear­ing of this. I hear of sus­pen­sions, trans­fers and ar­rests, but nev­er dis­missals.

We must be more fo­cused and me­thod­i­cal if we are to ad­dress the con­sid­er­able chal­lenges fac­ing our small coun­try.

Rishi-Nir­van Bal­roop

Diego Mar­tin