I have al­ways been of the view that peo­ple of less pow­er and in­flu­ence in our so­ci­ety stand on firmer ground than those who hold high of­fice in T&T, with ref­er­ence to moral­i­ty. A cou­ple weeks ago I lis­tened to a talk show host on a morn­ing ra­dio show. They were in­ter­view­ing one of the or­gan­is­ers of the To­ba­go Jazz Fes­ti­val. At the end of the in­ter­view they were of­fered en­try to the fes­ti­val should they go to To­ba­go. Though they did not say it in words, their re­sponse sug­gest­ed that should they at­tend the show, they would do so at their own ex­pense.

It should be of great con­cern to us as cit­i­zens of T&T to hear a for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary ex­press that she sees noth­ing wrong in staff mem­bers ac­cept­ing gifts from their line min­is­ter. One must now ask the ques­tion: were there oth­er gifts? And to what end were these gifts ac­cept­ed? This is not a par­lour or some shop; this is a gov­ern­ment min­istry.

A Pierre

Mara­bel­la