Mick­ela Pan­day

A po­lice post should have been a sto­ry about Pub­lic Safe­ty. In­stead, it be­came a sto­ry about pol­i­tics.

The Gov­ern­ment says the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion ob­struct­ed the con­struc­tion of a new po­lice post, ac­cus­ing the Cor­po­ra­tion of putting pol­i­tics ahead of pub­lic safe­ty. The Cor­po­ra­tion says it was sim­ply car­ry­ing out its le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and had not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed be­fore work be­gan.

By now, the pub­lic has heard both sides. What con­cerns me is some­thing else. How did a project in­tend­ed to make our com­mu­ni­ties safer be­come an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal con­fronta­tion? Be­cause that is the ques­tion that should con­cern every cit­i­zen, re­gard­less of which par­ty they sup­port.

Crime does not wear a par­ty jer­sey, so why are we fight­ing crime as if it does?

For too long, Trinidad and To­ba­go has been trapped in a style of pol­i­tics where every dis­agree­ment be­comes a pub­lic spec­ta­cle. Every is­sue is framed as a con­test to be won rather than a prob­lem to be solved. Every crit­i­cism is la­belled sab­o­tage, while every de­fence is dis­missed as pro­pa­gan­da.

Mean­while, cit­i­zens are left ask­ing a much sim­pler ques­tion: who is ac­tu­al­ly get­ting the job done?

For the av­er­age cit­i­zen, this de­bate is not about plan­ning ap­provals, statu­to­ry pow­ers or po­lit­i­cal blame. It is about con­fi­dence. Con­fi­dence that when lead­ers an­nounce an ini­tia­tive to make com­mu­ni­ties safer, they have al­ready done the ground­work nec­es­sary to de­liv­er it. Con­fi­dence that the dif­fer­ent arms of the State are work­ing to­wards the same ob­jec­tive in­stead of pulling in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. That con­fi­dence is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to main­tain.

The is­sue is not whether we need a po­lice post. Com­mu­ni­ties de­serve greater po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty. Po­lice of­fi­cers de­serve the re­sources they need to do their jobs ef­fec­tive­ly. Cit­i­zens de­serve to feel safer in their homes and neigh­bour­hoods.

The re­al is­sue is whether our in­sti­tu­tions are still ca­pa­ble of work­ing to­geth­er in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

If the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion was legal­ly en­ti­tled to be con­sult­ed be­fore con­struc­tion be­gan, then that con­sul­ta­tion should have tak­en place. Re­spect for the law and for lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­not de­pend on po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience. If, on the oth­er hand, bu­reau­cra­cy or pol­i­tics de­layed a project in­tend­ed to im­prove pub­lic safe­ty, then that too is un­ac­cept­able.

Nei­ther ex­pla­na­tion should sat­is­fy us. Be­cause in ei­ther sce­nario, the peo­ple lose.

Some­where be­tween the an­nounce­ment of the project and the pub­lic dis­pute that fol­lowed, some­thing clear­ly broke down. Whether it was com­mu­ni­ca­tion, plan­ning or sim­ple com­mon sense, the re­sult was the same: an­oth­er na­tion­al is­sue over­shad­owed by po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ment.

What­ev­er the rea­son, it should nev­er have reached this point.

Good gov­er­nance is not mea­sured by how well gov­ern­ments de­fend them­selves af­ter con­tro­ver­sy erupts. It is mea­sured by how well they pre­vent un­nec­es­sary con­tro­ver­sy in the first place.

How many meet­ings would it have tak­en to avoid this pub­lic dis­pute? One? Two? How many phone calls? Sure­ly few­er than the num­ber of po­lit­i­cal state­ments that fol­lowed.

This is why the is­sue re­fus­es to end at the gates of one po­lice post. It speaks to some­thing much big­ger: the grow­ing frus­tra­tion that too many na­tion­al is­sues now de­scend in­to po­lit­i­cal con­fronta­tion be­fore prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions ever take cen­tre stage.

We seem to have reached a point where dis­agree­ment has be­come the first re­sponse in­stead of the last re­sort. Pub­lic dis­putes now un­fold in full view of the na­tion be­fore every ef­fort has been made to re­solve them. That may pro­duce dra­mat­ic head­lines, but it rarely pro­duces bet­ter out­comes.

Whether it is cen­tral gov­ern­ment or lo­cal gov­ern­ment, every pub­lic au­thor­i­ty has re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that de­serve re­spect. Lo­cal gov­ern­ment is not an in­con­ve­nience to be ac­knowl­edged on­ly when per­mis­sion is re­quired. Equal­ly, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty should nev­er be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age in po­lit­i­cal dis­putes.

Lead­er­ship is test­ed long be­fore the first press con­fer­ence. It is test­ed in the con­ver­sa­tions the pub­lic nev­er sees, the phone calls, the meet­ings and the will­ing­ness to re­solve dif­fer­ences be­fore they be­come na­tion­al con­tro­ver­sies. That is not weak­ness. It is sim­ply good lead­er­ship.

The sad­dest part of this week’s con­tro­ver­sy is not that con­struc­tion was halt­ed. It is that be­fore a sin­gle of­fi­cer has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve from that po­lice post, it has al­ready be­come an­oth­er sym­bol of po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion.

Crime does not pause while politi­cians ar­gue. It does not wait for ju­ris­dic­tion­al dis­putes to be set­tled or for com­pet­ing nar­ra­tives to play out in the head­lines. Every day lost is an­oth­er day in which or­di­nary cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to live with fear and un­cer­tain­ty.

Per­haps that is the les­son we should take from this week. The great­est threat to good gov­er­nance is not dis­agree­ment; it is al­low­ing a dis­agree­ment to be­come more im­por­tant than the prob­lem we are try­ing to solve.

If we can­not put pol­i­tics aside long enough to build a po­lice post, then the ques­tion we should all be ask­ing is not who won this week’s ar­gu­ment. It is whether the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are any safer be­cause of it.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law