Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The ba­sic facts about the re­cent ap­pear­ance of for­eign mil­i­tary per­son­nel on lo­cal soil should have been ad­dressed by Gov­ern­ment, says for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray.

Cit­ing the re­cent ap­pear­ance of for­eign mil­i­tary per­son­nel on lo­cal soil as a clear ex­am­ple of poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Paray's al­so said that in T&T, there are clear signs that ac­count­abil­i­ty is slip­ping.

"Peo­ple saw the re­cent ap­pear­ance of for­eign mil­i­tary per­son­nel on lo­cal soil, footage cir­cu­lat­ed on­line. Even if op­er­a­tional de­tails must re­main con­fi­den­tial for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, the ba­sic facts should have been ad­dressed," Paray said in a post on Face­book in an ap­par­ent com­men­tary on the con­tro­ver­sy over the in­stal­la­tion of a US radar in To­ba­go.

"Si­lence breeds sus­pi­cion. A brief, con­trolled ex­pla­na­tion would have eased con­cerns and lim­it­ed ru­mour. When a Gov­ern­ment re­fus­es to com­mu­ni­cate on some­thing peo­ple can plain­ly see, it dam­ages trust and fu­els un­nec­es­sary anx­i­ety."

Paray said with­out ac­count­abil­i­ty, sus­pi­cion grows.

"Ac­count­abil­i­ty is a sta­bilis­er. It pro­tects pub­lic mon­ey, builds trust, keeps young peo­ple en­gaged in­stead of cyn­i­cal. It strength­ens democ­ra­cy by ex­pos­ing prob­lems ear­ly. It forces clar­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy and forces lead­ers to treat cit­i­zens as adults," he said.

"If T&T wants to move for­ward, lead­ers must open the space for re­al ques­tions. They must an­swer even when it is un­com­fort­able. They must com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly on is­sues peo­ple wit­ness for them­selves, in­clud­ing the pres­ence of for­eign mil­i­tary per­son­nel."

Paray said lead­er­ship should raise the bar, "not copy the weak­est habits of the past."

He said poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion across the Gov­ern­ment makes every­thing worse.

"State­ments con­tra­dict each oth­er. Min­is­ters give dif­fer­ent ex­pla­na­tions days apart. Press con­fer­ences drift with­out ad­dress­ing the is­sues peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly want an­swered," he said.

"You saw it with crime da­ta, where po­lice fig­ures clashed with Cab­i­net com­men­tary, with ma­jor projects where dead­lines shift with­out rea­son. Com­mu­ni­ties hit by flood­ing or fires told re­porters they couldn't even fig­ure out which agency was re­spon­si­ble. Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion cre­ates doubt that did not need to ex­ist."

Paray added, "In Op­po­si­tion, you can say al­most any­thing and walk away. Your au­di­ence is small­er. Once you en­ter gov­ern­ment, that changes. You speak to the en­tire coun­try, the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers. In­vestors, part­ners and in­sti­tu­tions lis­ten for tone and look for ma­tu­ri­ty. They in­ter­pret si­lence as con­fu­sion and reck­less com­ments as in­sta­bil­i­ty. A gov­ern­ment can­not com­mu­ni­cate like an Op­po­si­tion. The stakes are high­er."

He al­so said every Par­lia­ment sit­ting gives an­oth­er ex­am­ple of ac­count­abil­i­ty slip­ping.

"Lo­cal me­dia re­port con­stant­ly on the Op­po­si­tion’s dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting min­is­ters to an­swer sim­ple ques­tions un­der the Stand­ing Or­ders. These aren't na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters. These are rou­tine up­dates on pol­i­cy, pro­cure­ment and per­for­mance. Yet ques­tions get ruled out of or­der or blocked be­fore any re­al an­swer emerges. Any­one watch­ing can see the avoid­ance."

He added, "The re­fusal of the Speak­er to al­low sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter has be­come a com­mon talk­ing point...com­men­ta­tors see a pat­tern. Sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions ex­ist to push past vague an­swers. Re­mov­ing that safe­guard weak­ens the House and shrinks the space where clar­i­ty can hap­pen. When the high­est of­fice in the coun­try can­not take a fol­low-up ques­tion, the pub­lic won­ders if trans­paren­cy is re­al or just a talk­ing point."

Paray said a strong democ­ra­cy de­pends on open de­bate, clear an­swers and func­tion­ing over­sight.

"When stand­ing or­ders be­come shields for min­is­ters, the Par­lia­ment stops serv­ing the peo­ple."