While the PP Gov­ern­ment be­lieves it has done a lot in four years, po­lit­i­cal ob­servers and some busi­ness groups have found them want­i­ng in sev­er­al ar­eas.At to­day's fourth an­niver­sary ral­ly at Mid Cen­tre Mall, the ad­min­is­tra­tion, ex­pect­ing a big crowd, will re­veal plans for the next six years billed as a "Na­tion­al Re­cov­ery" thrust. This will be re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar and oth­er speak­ers.

Asked about the per­vad­ing overview of the PP–a mix­ture of pop­u­lar­i­ty for in­fra­struc­tur­al de­liv­ery, threat­ened by un­pop­u­lar per­cep­tion of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment–House Leader Roodal Mooni­lal said on Tues­day: "We're heart­ened by the fact no one can bring cred­i­ble ev­i­dence of any cor­rup­tion or theft by gov­ern­ment mem­bers un­like the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment. The so­ci­ety has gen­er­at­ed mau­vais langue and bac­cha­nal in­volv­ing talk of cor­rup­tion, but we have lit­tle or no re­al ev­i­dence of that.

"Like any gov­ern­ment we had chal­lenges and mis­takes, but in all, the Prime Min­is­ter has act­ed swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly, in­clud­ing re­vok­ing min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments. She has the strength, where oth­er lead­ers be­fore her didn't."Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment had launched pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion in the Par­lia­ment, an aid to good gov­er­nance."It would have been in place two years ago if the Op­po­si­tion PNM had co-op­er­at­ed at com­mit­tee stage and as­sist­ed pas­sage," he added.

"Among many oth­er ini­tia­tives, we've re­formed the par­lia­men­tary process to deep­en ac­count­abil­i­ty. From Ju­ly, the new Stand­ing Or­ders for­mat will in­clude sys­tems for deep scruti­ny and elic­it in­for­ma­tion."The PP's achieve­ments, Mooni­lal added, have been peo­ple-ori­ent­ed."At com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, we've had mas­sive in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment– drainage, roads, wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty–de­liv­er­ing things PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions were elect­ed to and failed de­spite 40 years.

"Among these, we have mega-con­struc­tion projects in­clud­ing South's teach­ing hos­pi­tal, Cou­va Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Chil­dren's hos­pi­tal, south UWI cam­pus, on­col­o­gy cen­tre, fire and po­lice sta­tions, Grand Bazaar in­ter­change, Pt Fortin high­way ex­ten­sions and the Chil­dren's Life Fund, which saved 92 young­sters.

"Crime is down 37 per cent. But crime re­mains among out­stand­ing chal­lenges. There's ag­gres­sive work un­der Gary Grif­fith. Oth­er out­stand­ing work in­volves con­struc­tion of homes in var­i­ous ar­eas and some leg­is­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on crime,"On the loss of the MSJ and oth­er PP frag­men­ta­tion, Mooni­lal replied, "We're hav­ing a very large crowd at our an­niver­sary ral­ly, where poli­cies and pro­grammes for the next six years will be re­vealed."

On elec­tion strat­e­gy, Mooni­lal said, "No one re­veals strat­e­gy. We're aware of the state of play and hap­py Kei­th Row­ley was re-elect­ed. He's a known quan­ti­ty."In St Joseph, the ma­jor­i­ty of vot­ers, vot­ed against him. In PNM re­cent­ly, 80 per cent of the 81,500 reg­is­tered vot­ers re­ject­ed him, since their elec­tion turnout was 20 per cent, they said. So eight out of ten PN­Mites didn't come out to sup­port him. It's dev­as­tat­ing con­dem­na­tion of a par­ty and leader.

"That makes him cap­tain of a PNM pirogue. Row­ley is well ad­vised to leave his cap­tain's hat for Car­ni­val," Mooni­lal added.

Mixed re­views from out­siders

Ob­servers, how­ev­er, sum­maris­ing the Gov­ern­ment's track record, re­flect­ed oth­er­wise on what the PP may have failed with and needs to rec­ti­fy.For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vice head Regi­nald Du­mas said, "Cred­it-wise, they in­sti­tut­ed im­proved sys­tems for high­er ed­u­ca­tion and trade and did much in­fra­struc­ture work. Deb­it-wise, they're not very good at gov­er­nance, lead­er­ship plan­ning, pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty and Cari­com."

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said, "Per­for­mance falls short of man­i­festo promis­es. Thumbs up for in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment, but per­for­mance in most oth­er sec­tors? Best rat­ed as fair."Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James: "The PP flat­tered to de­ceive. The trans­for­ma­tion de­vel­op­ment they were rat­ed for hasn't oc­curred. Plus they've been pre­dom­i­nant­ly eth­nic in their pro­vi­sions."

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj said, "De­fi­cien­cies ex­ist in gov­er­nance is­sues, re­struc­tur­ing of pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery and re­sponse to the elec­torate's needs. Al­so need­ed is the lead­er­ship to ful­fil re­struc­tur­ing of so­ci­ety and at­tend­ing to uni­ty on the ground."T&T Cham­ber CEO Cather­ine Ku­mar said the PP had enun­ci­at­ed a lot of plans but ex­e­cu­tion was lim­it­ed. Ku­mar said a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of changes in min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios had fu­elled lack of con­ti­nu­ity, which could af­fect in­vest­ment.

Am­cham head Hugh Howard com­ment­ed, "A peo­ple gets the gov­ern­ment they de­serve. The PP has lived up to some man­i­festo/plat­form un­der­tak­ings, but def­i­nite­ly not on some im­por­tant ones, in­clud­ing sen­si­tis­ing peo­ple to a fair day's work for fair pay, and the sub­sidy is­sue."

T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Nicholas Lok Jack said, "The coun­try still has to deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion in a se­ri­ous man­ner, the per­cep­tion of cor­rup­tion and gov­ern­ment bu­reau­cra­cy. These have been on­go­ing through sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions and it needs the po­lit­i­cal will to deal with these."