In the gayelle of na­tion­al pol­i­tics, moral­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of­ten shift de­pend­ing on the com­bat­ants. As the late, leg­endary Bas­deo Pan­day ob­served, pol­i­tics has a moral­i­ty of its own—a re­al­i­ty shaped by years of ex­pe­ri­ence. It should be a no­ble pro­fes­sion, but politi­cians’ un­eth­i­cal ac­tions turn it in­to a realm of crooked­ness. The ur­gent mat­ters of nurs­es’ wages, un­em­ploy­ment, and par­lia­men­tary be­hav­iour show how shift­ing stan­dards im­pact both pub­lic trust and dai­ly life.

The Nurs­es: Ex­haust­ed, un­der­paid, over­worked in hos­pi­tals where walls, beds and equip­ment bleed from lack of main­te­nance, sim­ply seek­ing the dig­ni­ty of fair wages, they’re not met with res­o­lu­tion, but with cal­cu­la­tion. The cam­paign speech­es? Filed away, pow­er se­cured. The ten per cent wage in­crease re­ward­ed those who waved the right colour flag, while oth­ers must queue for ne­go­ti­a­tions, de­spite cu­mu­la­tive in­fla­tion of 40-45 per cent since 2013 and mount­ing pres­sures of dai­ly life.

Then the be­low-the-belt pub­lic­i­ty on over­time fig­ures of $60,000 and $80,000 earned over three months, pre­sent­ed as if nurs­es’ labour and ex­haus­tion do not jus­ti­fy their de­mand for fair wages. Such tac­tics at­tempt to dele­git­imise their protests, de­spite wage stag­na­tion since 2013. Blam­ing nurs­es for high over­time costs and cor­rup­tion ig­nores the re­al cul­prit: in­ef­fi­cient man­age­ment and poor lead­er­ship. Nurs­es aren’t re­spon­si­ble for past or present gov­ern­ment and al­leged NCRHA cor­rup­tion.

When po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance and syco­phancy be­come cen­tral to eco­nom­ic and so­cial pol­i­cy, as seen in the se­lec­tive ten per cent wage in­crease, the con­se­quences rip­ple across so­ci­ety.

Both busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als shoul­der in­creased tax­es, levies, and oth­er fi­nan­cial bur­dens, de­liv­er­ing the fi­nal blow that forces busi­ness clo­sures and threat­en­ing liveli­hoods.

Nurs­es de­serve com­pen­sa­tion, re­flect­ing the val­ue and es­sen­tial na­ture of their ser­vice. Yet the trade union lead­ers who once fierce­ly ad­vo­cat­ed so­cial jus­tice are now silent, rais­ing ques­tions about the in­tegri­ty of some trade unions that ap­pear to have sac­ri­ficed so­cial jus­tice for po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy.

Our nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als are gross­ly un­der­paid. They work un­der emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing con­di­tions, yet they are ex­pect­ed to pro­vide ef­fi­cient and re­spect­ful care for us. Many have mi­grat­ed, not be­cause they want­ed to, but be­cause they had to, for their own well-be­ing.

The Grass Cut­ters: Be­yond the hos­pi­tal walls are the thou­sands of fired CEPEP work­ers, “grass­cut­ters,” whose labour the Gov­ern­ment brand­ed “me­nial” work. Re­cent­ly, trade union­ist Leroy Bap­tiste, now Labour Min­is­ter, spoke about sus­tain­able jobs and fair wages. How many sus­tain­able jobs has his Gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed for the “grass­cut­ters”? The Gov­ern­ment de­meaned hon­est work. In oth­er coun­tries, grass cut­ters are val­ued as groundskeep­ers, land­scap­ers, en­vi­ron­men­tal main­te­nance work­ers, pub­lic works work­ers, and green­keep­ers—sus­tain­able, life­time jobs es­sen­tial to a healthy hu­man and an­i­mal eco-sys­tem, but not here, where wild grass fu­els fires and rot­ting garbage stinks up the land, grind­ing na­tion­al es­teem.

Par­lia­ment: Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals In­quiry or Po­lit­i­cal In­qui­si­tion? An Ex­press ar­ti­cle dat­ed De­cem­ber 16, 2024, head­lined Com­plaints over Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Drug Car­tels, re­port­ed that lawyer Jagdeo Singh, now Speak­er of the House and Chair of the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAAC) said “I have re­ceived nu­mer­ous com­plaints from clients who have all said that they have tried to im­port phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, but when they ap­ply for per­mits to do so, it is be­ing stuck in the Food and Drug Chem­istry Di­vi­sion. There have been un­due de­lays in get­ting per­mits, and these are peo­ple who want to do things the right way and not bring things by suit­case trade.” A press re­lease dat­ed De­cem­ber 2024, is­sued by the Min­istry of Health un­der then min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, rub­bished lawyer Jagdeo Singh’s state­ment. Jagdeo Singh, now chairs the in­quiry in­to the pro­cure­ment of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals—the same is­sue—and for­mer Health Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh is a wit­ness. Does Chair­man Jagdeo Singh have a con­flict of in­ter­est? Who were his clients, and were they de­clared to the PAAC? Were any of his clients wit­ness­es in the PAAC in­quiry? Did he dis­close any pri­or pro­fes­sion­al con­nec­tion in the pro­cure­ment of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals? If so, why didn’t he re­cuse him­self? This mat­ter goes be­yond any one in­di­vid­ual. It rais­es a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion whether the in­quiry, from the out­set, has been so com­pro­mised that its find­ings can no longer be deemed cred­i­ble, and the in­tegri­ty of the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee sys­tem it­self stands im­pugned. Ac­cord­ing­ly, both the House and the Sen­ate should de­ter­mine what cor­rec­tive steps are nec­es­sary to pre­serve the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Par­lia­ment and main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence in its process­es

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the spec­ta­cle of na­tion­al pol­i­tics re­veals how eas­i­ly moral­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism can be set aside when per­son­al and po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests dom­i­nate.