One cannot help but think: where were Mr Dumas and Mr Daly when President's House was collapsing?
The fact that the official residence and office of the President of this oil-rich nation could collapse is for me the greatest wrongdoing of all, and is the real issue we should all address our minds to.
One should, in my respectful opinion, be grateful to the CPO for taking the shame out of the eye of the nation by offering the President a housing allowance that he can use to make himself and his family more comfortable while they hop around from venue to venue to carry out the President's official duties.
The official President's House also has a banquet hall for state functions and receptions. So many bloggers assume the President is currently living in an equivalent style of housing, which is not the case.
In this attack on the allowance which cannot rent anything in the upscale neighbourhoods of this country, Daly and Dumas have done us a disservice. They failed to put the allowance into context, which is exactly the "particular circumstances" that the CPO has alluded to.
One can only implore of Mr Dumas that as a former head of the Public Service, he could perhaps use his time to identify the flaws in our public service that have caused this absence of a culture of maintenance in our nation. Is it that maintaining buildings does not offer opportunities for theft and "eat ah food"? Where has it gone?
Why do we continue to allow our heritage assets to deteriorate to such a state? Is it because we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater and after 51 years still cannot appreciate the colonial gifts we have been given? Is it that our civil service is not sufficiently accountable? What caused the collapse of the official office and residence of the head of state?
Mr Daly, as one of this country's legal luminaries, may want to pause to consider why this particular President has received the most visits and been presented with the most petitions by the citizenry of this country. Not a week goes by when some aggrieved party or group chooses to ignore all the legal avenues available to them in the pursuit of justice.
Is it that people no one longer believe they can get justice in our system? Is it that despite the recent reforms to the judicial system, it is still painfully slow and many fines and penalties are still outdated and do not give any form of real redress?
The fact that so many choose to go to the President and bypass an entire system should perhaps be what Mr Daly should be considering as a matter of priority and greater service to this country rather than seek to wrongfully malign a beacon of hope to the nation.
Michele Celestine
Maraval