Dr Theodore Fer­gu­son

To cor­rect the prob­lem our politi­cians of to­day (in­clud­ing those in op­po­si­tion) must demon­strate a dra­mat­ic shift in their be­hav­iour such that they be­come the role mod­els for the ci­vil­i­ty for which the na­tion is des­per­ate­ly long­ing. They must claim the moral high ground if they are to in­spire the coun­try to a high­er lev­el of ci­vil­i­ty. If a gov­ern­ment wish­es to claim the moral high ground, then it must work as­sid­u­ous­ly in the in­ter­est of all the peo­ple of T&T and not just a favoured few, whether it is about em­ploy­ment in URP or in the award of large state con­tracts. It can­not, on the one hand, com­plain of the cor­rup­tion of past regimes when on the oth­er hand it is open­ly con­don­ing and en­gag­ing in the same cor­rupt prac­tices. The MPs who seek to favour their sup­port­ers must recog­nise that they are pub­licly broad­cast­ing their will­ing­ness to en­gage in an im­moral and cor­rupt prac­tice. They should there­fore not be sur­prised when their sup­port base nar­rows, as it sure­ly will. The ex­pe­ri­ences of past gov­ern­ments should be in­struc­tive.