Ram­di­al Ram­di­al

More than a month has elapsed since the new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment came to pow­er. It seems they re­quire a bit more time to ful­ly as­sess the state of the coun­try, as the pre­vi­ous decade-old Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) regime left it.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­di­cat­ed she still has to con­tend with some “shame­less” in­di­vid­u­als who have not va­cat­ed their state board ap­point­ments, as they con­tin­ue to award state con­tracts long af­ter they have “passed the fin­ish line.” Such chal­lenges, as well as the fo­cus on the mid-term re­view, would hin­der the im­me­di­ate im­ple­men­ta­tion of cam­paign promis­es.

I sense the pop­u­la­tion is will­ing to give them time to de­liv­er, but rev­enue gen­er­a­tion re­mains a con­cern. How soon will we see in­creased earn­ings from the en­er­gy sec­tor? How long will it take to re­open a prof­itable Petrotrin? When will we awak­en from the dream­ing sleep talk of “di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion” to see it be­come re­al­i­ty and in­spire in­no­va­tion through­out our na­tion? Will such ef­forts be sus­tain­able, or will they on­ly be of aca­d­e­m­ic val­ue? The pub­lic wage bill alone is a hefty ex­pense that must be paid, and it is ex­pect­ed to in­crease soon. Cer­tain is­sues, like the late salary pay­ments to WASA work­ers and Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit’s post-Cab­i­net ref­er­ence to a back­log in pro­cess­ing se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion ap­pli­ca­tions, have caused con­cern. Was such caused by the change in gov­ern­ment, ad­min­is­tra­tive laps­es, or a short­age of funds? Does the new Gov­ern­ment have to cope with un­sup­port­ive staff in de­part­ments oth­er than the state boards?

One re­calls when for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour com­plained about the in­com­pe­tence of par­tic­u­lar pub­lic ser­vants when they faced pub­lic crit­i­cism. Does the new Gov­ern­ment have to con­tend with such chal­lenges? I no­ticed that some per­ma­nent sec­re­taries have been trans­ferred to oth­er min­istries. This is sure­ly a move to as­sert the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies as in­ter­pret­ed by the new min­is­ters. Change man­age­ment is rarely quick or easy.

The cit­i­zens are al­ways hap­py to re­ceive in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the spend­ing of their tax dol­lars and grant­i­ng of lux­u­ries and perks to peo­ple se­lect­ed for such by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

The re­lease of the lists of per­sons grant­ed Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route pass­es by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment is an in­ter­est­ing de­vel­op­ment in “free­ing up in­for­ma­tion” with­out the need for a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act ap­pli­ca­tion. Is it a move to “ex­pose” cer­tain “friends and fam­i­ly?” Will some non-par­ti­san ac­tors find them­selves broad brushed? Shouldn’t ac­cess to state largesse make one “open game,” re­gard­less of ar­gu­ments for pri­va­cy and safe­ty? This may be part of a cul­tur­al evo­lu­tion that pro­motes greater trans­paren­cy.

The Prime Min­is­ter has in­di­cat­ed she will re­veal the ma­jor re­cip­i­ents of forex from the state dur­ing the pre­vi­ous two con­sec­u­tive PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions. The rev­e­la­tion of such in­for­ma­tion was at the heart of the dis­missal of for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran in 2015 by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment. He sued. Both the High Court and the Ap­peal Court ruled in his favour. The Prime Min­is­ter must feel her in­ten­tions to dis­close are jus­ti­fied. Will she pro­ceed, and if so, what would be the reper­cus­sions? In­quir­ing cit­i­zens are in­ter­est­ed.

In more rev­e­la­tions dur­ing last week’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar iden­ti­fied Cepep, CAL, and all re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions as fail­ing to file their au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for sev­er­al years. Did any of these named state en­ter­pris­es and bod­ies ap­pear be­fore the var­i­ous Par­lia­men­tary JSCs for ex­am­i­na­tion? If so, they would have been ex­posed ear­li­er, or did they not com­ply? The Prime Min­is­ter is quite right in her de­c­la­ra­tion that du­bi­ous man­age­ment of state re­sources will be re­port­ed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau. All ef­forts to en­sure trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in gov­ern­ment busi­ness must be en­cour­aged. Such should be stan­dard prac­tice.

As right-think­ing cit­i­zens wish the Gov­ern­ment well, in all our in­ter­ests, they would have been shocked to hear from Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge that he want­ed “to be left alone”, that he did not want to be a min­is­ter and was some­how forced in­to tak­ing the role. He should have kept such thoughts to him­self un­less he is feign­ing mod­esty. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is nei­ther for the faint­heart­ed nor those whose hearts are not in it. This will cer­tain­ly be a point of ref­er­ence by po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and oth­er crit­ics if things “go side­ways.”

Did his un­will­ing­ness play a part in the split­ting of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lios? Con­verse­ly, Min­is­ter Alexan­der has dis­played noth­ing but en­thu­si­asm. His pub­lic ap­peal to the TTPS of­fi­cers to turn out to work was com­mend­able. As a for­mer of­fi­cer, he has the in­side scoop and ex­plained that many abuse their sick leave. A re­sponse from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion would be in­ter­est­ing. Would they un­con­di­tion­al­ly de­fend their mem­bers, or would they face re­al­i­ty, of­fer so­lu­tions, and even en­dorse the min­is­ter’s ap­peal?

Last Fri­day, we cel­e­brat­ed 180 years of In­di­an Ar­rival in T&T. We ap­pre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tion of those hum­ble peo­ple, as we ap­pre­ci­ate those who came be­fore, and those who came af­ter. We must con­tin­ue to val­ue our var­i­ous peo­ples. They all shape the Trin­bag­on­ian iden­ti­ty. We may have come on dif­fer­ent boats, but we’re all in the same boat now.