Clevon Raphael

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple, As­sem­bly­man Ash­worth Jack, is ex­pect­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, which con­trols the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, to come af­ter him per­son­al­ly, dur­ing the cam­paign for the up­com­ing elec­tion of the THA.

In fact, the mi­nor­i­ty leader in the THA says the pro­pa­gan­da from the PNM has al­ready be­gun but he is not fazed, since he has no more co­coa in the sun. He is ac­cus­ing the PNM lead­er­ship in the sis­ter is­land of not giv­ing hon­est an­swers, if any at all, as to why ma­jor projects are suf­fer­ing from mas­sive cost over­runs.

Q: Mr Jack, we are not hear­ing any dis­cord be­tween the TOP and the rul­ing PNM regime at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Does that mean that it is all smooth sail­ing be­tween both sides at the As­sem­bly?

A: (An as­ton­ished ex­pres­sion in the con­fer­ence room of the Leader of the Mi­nor­i­ty's of­fice in Scar­bor­ough, Thurs­day morn­ing) You re­porters have not been do­ing prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions as it re­lates to how mon­ey is be­ing spent by this in­com­pe­tent, and I am us­ing a mild word, regime cur­rent­ly in charge of the THA.

What specif­i­cal­ly are you re­fer­ring to?

OK. The THA, un­der the PNM, has gone on an ex­ten­sive de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme, as it has been do­ing once every four years, close to the hold­ing of the THA elec­tions, and this year is no dif­fer­ent, and very in­ter­est­ing­ly, all those projects come to a screech­ing halt im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the run­ning of those elec­tions. The projects re­late to the con­struc­tion of drains, re­tain­ing walls, and an­oth­er in­ter­est­ing fea­ture of these projects is that the es­ti­mat­ed costs are not pro­vid­ed, so that we, as the op­po­si­tion or any­body else, could ac­cu­rate­ly mon­i­tor if these projects are be­ing kept with­in ap­proved costs.

And the THA, un­der the PNM, has a his­to­ry of very high cost over­runs.

Is that the same sit­u­a­tion to­day?

Of course it is. I am talk­ing about now. A year be­fore each elec­tion, since this ad­min­is­tra­tion has tak­en over, this high­ly im­prop­er ac­tion has been tak­en, in an at­tempt to hood­wink the young vot­ers, on­ly to bring them to an abrupt end im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the elec­tion is held, send­ing every­body home.

Ob­vi­ous­ly some­thing has to be wrong with that scan­dalous waste of pub­lic funds.

As the op­po­si­tion in the THA, don't you have the right to ask for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to these projects?

We have been ask­ing for rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion but none has been forth­com­ing over the years. Let me give you just a few ex­am­ples. The Scar­bor­ough Li­brary was orig­i­nal­ly con­tract­ed to cost $19m in May 2004, and sched­uled to be com­plet­ed in 12 to 18 months. It is now es­ti­mat­ed at more than $100m and now sched­uled to be com­plet­ed this year. Try as we might, we can­not get in­for­ma­tion as to how come this orig­i­nal cost sky­rock­et­ed to where it is to­day.

(Throw­ing his hands above his head) Eight years and no­body in the rul­ing par­ty seems to think that there is a prob­lem. That is gov­er­nance PNM-style. You want an­oth­er one? Let's look at the Fi­nan­cial Com­plex es­ti­mat­ed to cost $22m in 2004 and to be com­plet­ed in 18 months to two years. It is now due to be fin­ished in De­cem­ber 2012, with some slight vari­a­tions, at a cost of $116m! We can al­so go to the Cul­tur­al Com­plex, es­ti­mat­ed at less than $100m, now at $400 mil­lion.

Have they been giv­ing you an­swers for these cost over­runs?

(An ex­as­per­at­ed coun­te­nance) Clevon, you are not lis­ten­ing to me or what? I told you we can­not get that in­for­ma­tion from Orville Lon­don (chief sec­re­tary) and the rest of this ad­min­is­tra­tion. That's the prob­lem; don't care how much you ask them, you beg them, no rea­son is be­ing giv­en, and they be­have as though it is their mon­ey they are spend­ing, when it is the tax­pay­ers whose funds are be­ing frit­tered away in this ir­re­spon­si­ble man­ner.

Is there any oth­er way in­stead of beg­ging that you can force them to give the in­for­ma­tion, if, as you claim, they are re­fus­ing to re­lease the rel­e­vant facts?

(Shak­ing his head in the neg­a­tive) That is the on­ly av­enue. But no­body should be sur­prised, it is a PNM thing. It is well known that when the par­ty was in charge of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, the op­po­si­tion and the peo­ple by ex­ten­sion were treat­ed with great dis­re­spect when Cab­i­net mem­bers re­fused to give an­swers to per­ti­nent ques­tions in the Par­lia­ment. It is def­i­nite­ly a PNM thing.

And you know what? When the THA sec­re­taries con­de­scend to give an­swers, they are very of­ten fac­tu­al­ly in­cor­rect be­cause they know if they should give the true fig­ures there would be wide­spread out­rage in To­ba­go.

Get­ting back to the projects you are speak­ing about, how many of them are un­der way?

Clevon, too nu­mer­ous to men­tion. They are mush­room­ing all over the place and this ques­tion must be asked: if you are tru­ly in­ter­est­ed in the in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go, why do you wait to build walls or con­struct a drain once every four years and around THA-elec­tion time? But lit­tle do they know that they can­not con­tin­ue to fool the elec­torate with that kind of naked pol­i­tick­ing.

If you think I am telling lies on this PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, let's take a look at an­oth­er lam­en­ta­ble mat­ter. In 2000, the Scar­bor­ough beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project was launched and sched­uled to be com­plet­ed one year lat­er. Lo and be­hold, 12 years af­ter, it was on­ly two months ago that it got un­der way, on the heels of an elec­tion less than one year away. Every­body knows that Scar­bor­ough is the largest shan­ty town in the en­tire Caribbean.

Where is the ev­i­dence to sup­port that as­ser­tion?

(Hands clasped on his chest and in a low tone of voice) Clevon, I trav­el quite ex­ten­sive­ly through­out the re­gion and I dare any­body to point out any oth­er town look­ing worse than Scar­bor­ough. I am will­ing to bet any­body, par­tic­u­lar­ly Orville Lon­don and his fel­low sec­re­taries. That is my ev­i­dence.

An­oth­er trou­bling fea­ture of this cur­rent THA regime is the dif­fi­cul­ty for non-PNM sup­port­ers to get a job in the THA or on any THA-spon­sored project. PNM peo­ple are known to call up par­ty mem­bers in their re­spec­tive dis­tricts and ask if so and so per­son ap­ply­ing for a job "is one of us?"

As­sum­ing what you are say­ing is true Mr Jack, what guar­an­tee can you give that if the TOP should win the up­com­ing polls you would not prac­tise that kind of al­leged dis­crim­i­na­tion?

Clevon, one of the guar­an­tees en­shrined in our con­sti­tu­tion is free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion, which means you are free to join or sup­port any or­gan­i­sa­tion, in­clud­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, and in strict com­pli­ance with that sa­cred in­junc­tion, I would not be par­ty to any kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion, if God wish­es that I be­come chief sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

In an is­land with just 66,000 peo­ple and com­pris­ing 116 square miles, we can­not alien­ate any mem­ber of the so­ci­ety, on any grounds, par­tic­u­lar­ly pol­i­tics. It is some­thing I take very se­ri­ous­ly be­cause I be­lieve in the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem and no one should ex­pect all of us to think the same way and on every is­sue.

On an­oth­er mat­ter, Mr Jack, wasn't TOP too harsh in its con­dem­na­tion of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter on the cred­it card af­fair?

(Fold­ing his arms and lean­ing back on his swiv­el chair) Clevon, I am the po­lit­i­cal leader of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple, and I just told you how I feel about spend­ing pub­lic mon­ey. We in the lead­er­ship of TOP, while un­der­stand­ing and sym­pa­thet­ic to the min­is­ter, hope that our forth­right han­dling of this un­for­tu­nate is­sue would send a mes­sage to the pop­u­la­tion as to how we would con­duct our af­fairs when we as­sume lead­er­ship of the THA at the next elec­tion.

The PNM is say­ing that the min­is­ter apol­o­gised to her par­ty and not to the gen­er­al pub­lic...are you buy­ing that?

(A quick re­sponse) The PNM has no moral au­thor­i­ty to talk about prin­ci­ples or apol­o­gy. Which par­ty has com­mit­ted the worst atroc­i­ties any po­lit­i­cal par­ty has in­flict­ed up­on the peo­ple of this coun­try? And I am yet to hear them apol­o­gise. As you know two wrongs do not make it right. I am not say­ing that and as you ad­mit­ted, our po­si­tion was harsh and if we be­lieve more is to be done I am quite sure we would have dis­cus­sions on that is­sue.

Mr Jack, I am not ask­ing you to dis­close your strate­gies to wrest the THA from the PNM but what mes­sage would the TOP be tak­ing to the To­ba­go elec­torate in this re­gard?

(Mas­sag­ing his low­er lip with two fin­gers) Truth. And the prospect of a new and bet­ter To­ba­go. It has suf­fered for much too long. We al­so have pow­er, when we be­came a mem­ber of the Part­ner­ship, to amend the con­sti­tu­tion to bring in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment that has elud­ed us for too long.

Mr Jack, you are al­so quite aware that the PNM is not go­ing to give up the THA with­out a good fight.

Sure.

What do you think would be their main thrust as they seek to re­tain con­trol of the As­sem­bly?

(An iron­ic chuck­le)

Race. "Jack and the TOP are go­ing to give To­ba­go to them In­di­ans" they would say. In fact it has start­ed al­ready, a lot of per­son­al­i­ty at­tacks on Ash­worth Jack. That is their modus operan­di.

Do you have any co­coa in the sun, Mr Jack?

Any co­coa has been out in the sun for a very long time and I have nev­er pro­fessed to be per­fect. I have made mis­takes in my life and all of them have been pub­lished. I do not know since when it is wrong for a young, am­bi­tious man to build his own home. This is what the PNM is sug­gest­ing be­cause they are say­ing that I got mon­ey from the PP to build it. (Laughs loud)

But noth­ing ill they say of me can hold wa­ter be­cause my hands are ab­solute­ly clean and my heart is in the right place. Some­thing that most of them on the oth­er side can­not boast of.