Tony Fras­er

The ap­proach of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment to what it con­sid­ers the il­le­gal and cor­rup­tion-rid­dled route tak­en by the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Orville Lon­don, to con­struct a pub­lic build­ing is yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple of how vul­gar par­ty pol­i­tics (the de­ter­mi­na­tion to sur­vive at all costs) dis­torts gov­ern­men­tal ac­tion and un­der­mines the qual­i­ty of gov­er­nance of­fered by gov­ern­ments.

All that mat­ters is to win and hold po­lit­i­cal pow­er and in the process de­ny op­pos­ing par­ties the op­por­tu­ni­ty to get in­to gov­ern­ment; the how does not mat­ter. With the prospect of hav­ing its coali­tion part­ner, the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), wrench loose the 12-year hold of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment on the As­sem­bly in elec­tions next year, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, her par­ty and gov­ern­ment, have en­gaged in a crass form of par­ty pol­i­tics and gov­er­nance.

Al­lied to the de­sire to get hold of com­plete pow­er in To­ba­go, the PM, her At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, court jester Roberts and man-of-busi­ness Warn­er are des­per­ate­ly seek­ing ways and means to de­flect at­ten­tion away from the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co, a mat­ter that is go­ing to be the bête noire of the PP right down to the wire in 2015 or if an ear­ly elec­tion is forced on the gov­ern­ment by its own ac­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Lon­don, for months he has been seek­ing a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter, as catered for in the THA Act: "The Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Sec­re­tary shall hold reg­u­lar dis­cus­sions with a view to for­mu­lat­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive and leg­isla­tive mech­a­nisms for the pro­mo­tion of har­mo­ny in the af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

In­stead of the ap­proach pre­scribed by the THA Act, the Gov­ern­ment has en­gaged in guer­ril­la war­fare against Lon­don and the As­sem­bly. It was first pur­sued through the then Min­is­ter for To­ba­go Af­fairs, Ver­nel­la Top­pin-Al­leyne (be­fore she fell on her own po­lit­i­cal sword). The pub­lic ha­rangues over the op­er­a­tions of the THA were pre­ferred to sen­si­ble dis­course. With the elec­tion due in ear­ly 2013, in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of the pub­lic con­flict was pre­ferred to dis­cus­sion.

The build own lease and trans­fer arrange­ment for the Mil­shirv Ad­min­is­tra­tive Cen­tre for Sport and Youth Af­fairs has been iden­ti­fied as the po­lit­i­cal is­sue over which Lon­don and the As­sem­bly should be whipped pub­licly, with the Prime Min­is­ter with whip in hand.

At one point the PM got in­to a fren­zy and de­mand­ed that the Chief Sec­re­tary and the PNM's leader "call the elec­tion now." The PM, ably as­sist­ed by her At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Anand Ram­lo­gan, then goes to the Par­lia­ment and makes sting­ing al­le­ga­tions of more than cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ty against Lon­don's As­sem­bly, with the AG in­di­cat­ing the Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to in­voke crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions against the As­sem­bly.

In­ci­den­tal­ly, it seems to have gone un­no­ticed that AG Ram­lo­gan has re­gained his ca­pac­i­ty and le­gal know-how in crim­i­nal law; this is af­ter hav­ing plead­ed in­no­cence of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in the in­fa­mous Sec­tion 34 mat­ter.

Based on what has at the time of writ­ing been made pub­lic, it turns out that a se­nior mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment, Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and act­ing Pres­i­dent, and a strong ad­vo­cate of the PP Gov­ern­ment, Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, in his pro­fes­sion­al le­gal ca­pac­i­ty, had in fact opined in a brief of his law firm that the ap­proach of the THA in the Mil­shirv mat­ter did not vi­o­late any law.

When the in­for­ma­tion is made pub­lic, Ram­lo­gan dons his oth­er per­sona of ig­no­rance: "I was not aware, that's why (to­mor­row, Mon­day) morn­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will write to Mr Lon­don, with the hope that he will make a full dis­clo­sure of all the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments. He will re­quest cer­tain crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to the trans­ac­tion."

But to have adopt­ed such a sen­si­ble and ob­vi­ous ap­proach in the first in­stance would not have gained po­lit­i­cal mileage for the Gov­ern­ment; which is what the gov­ern­ment is af­ter in the run-up to the THA polls. How­ev­er, Lon­don and the THA are not with­out blame in this mat­ter; they should, long ago, have put be­fore the pub­lic the ba­sis of their ac­tion.

We as cit­i­zens and those of us with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press thoughts pub­licly must probe the psy­che of politi­cians in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean to de­ter­mine the ma­jor mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tors which dri­ve them in­sane.

For in­stance, what weight should be giv­en to a pre­dis­po­si­tion of the in­di­vid­ual to hold­ing pow­er over oth­ers? Is al­tru­ism, the un­selfish de­sire to do good for com­mu­ni­ty, a ma­jor fac­tor? Is it pure greed, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get in­to a po­si­tion to se­cure mil­lions for self, fam­i­ly, ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly and friends? In the in­stance of plur­al so­ci­eties such as T&T, is it base in­stinct to hold po­lit­i­cal pow­er to ad­vance the in­ter­ests of one group over the oth­er?

Is po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tion based sim­ply on the"eat ah food" men­tal­i­ty? With the THA elec­tions due in a few months and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls in Trinidad some­time mid-2013, the politi­cians on all sides will take the coun­try through a road of vul­gar pol­i­tics, "half-truths, lies and in­nu­en­does" and at­tempts to di­vide the coun­try along racial and ge­o­graph­i­cal lines.