“I love peo­ple, but I don’t like ghosts,” is how Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to the me­dia’s ques­tions on the con­tin­u­ing con­cerns with the fir­ing of thou­sands from the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), the Com­mu­ni­ty Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), and Reaf­foresta­tion pro­grammes. It has been sug­gest­ed that there were as many as 8,000 “ghosts” amongst the al­most 30,000 who were dis­missed. The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so sig­nalled that her Gov­ern­ment will pri­ori­tise the fill­ing of va­can­cies with­in the pub­lic sec­tor, pos­si­bly in a move away from what she called a “na­tion of grass-cut­ters un­der the PNM.”

One won­ders how many for­mer CEPEP and URP work­ers can tran­si­tion in­to those avail­able per­ma­nent po­si­tions. As she spoke out­side of Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, she re­vealed that a “deficit bud­get” will be read in “ear­ly Oc­to­ber,” even while as­sur­ing that “we do have plans for job cre­ation.” Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son has called for “hard facts” in her de­fence of the fired work­ers.

Al­though Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dave Tan­coo will de­liv­er his maid­en bud­get next month, he has al­ready al­layed fears by in­di­cat­ing that the Trin­bag­on­ian dol­lar will not be de­val­ued. Busi­ness­man Emile Elias had ear­li­er fear­mon­gered a “TT$9 to US$1” de­val­u­a­tion. What are the spe­cif­ic pos­si­ble ben­e­fits of a de­val­u­a­tion? Can these pre­ferred out­comes be stim­u­lat­ed with­out the de­val­u­a­tion it­self? Why not pur­sue more di­rect ap­proach­es in­stead of this du­bi­ous de­val­u­a­tion de­bate? Has any­one ever thought about the detri­ment to the na­tion­al psy­che if OUR dol­lar is judged to be worth LESS? The work of every­one who earns TT dol­lars will be im­me­di­ate­ly de­val­ued. How de­press­ing!

I look for­ward to the stim­u­la­tion of lo­cal pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty. I al­so an­tic­i­pate the in­cen­tives to pa­tro­n­ise lo­cal goods and ser­vices, es­pe­cial­ly from our MSMEs. Our Gov­ern­ment should ag­gres­sive­ly pur­sue the AP­PRE­CI­A­TION of the Trin­bag­on­ian dol­lar by help­ing to make our do­mes­tic prod­ucts more at­trac­tive at home and abroad. Per­haps the new bud­get will stim­u­late the na­tion­al imag­i­na­tion.

I can al­so con­firm as true what Min­is­ter Tan­coo said about URP work­ers be­ing fired “when PNM won elec­tions” in 2015. I was MP for Cou­va North then, and many of those dis­placed per­sons came cry­ing to me for as­sis­tance. This is the vi­cious cy­cle con­front­ed by too many “sin­gle moth­ers” and “sole bread­win­ners” on ei­ther side of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide who re­main de­pen­dent on these make-work pro­grammes. Per­haps, such re­wards to the low or no-in­come rank-and-file par­ty sup­port­er could be dis­missed as part of the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture, but the feed­ing of the cor­rupt and the crim­i­nal must not. From my ex­pe­ri­ence, I sug­gest:

1. URP re­gion­al of­fice work­ers should be re­cruit­ed from the Pub­lic Ser­vice. These jobs would be per­ma­nent, and the best can­di­dates would be hired.

2. The bid­ding for con­tracts should be prop­er­ly han­dled by the Pro­cure­ment Unit at the RDLG, in full com­pli­ance with the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act 2015.

3. The gen­er­al work­force should be se­lect­ed from da­ta at the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, of­fices of MPs and coun­cil­lors, and oth­er lo­ca­tions fre­quent­ed by our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens. They should be as­signed so­cial work­ers and oth­er sup­port to help them tran­si­tion in­to per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment.

4. Pri­or­i­ty should be giv­en to small and medi­um con­trac­tors from with­in the par­tic­u­lar con­stituen­cy with a ma­jor lo­cal work­force.

The soon­er URP, CEPEP, and oth­er sim­i­lar pro­grammes are re­struc­tured and restart­ed, the bet­ter for the rep­u­ta­tions, safe­ty, and se­cu­ri­ty of the min­is­ters who were re­spon­si­ble for their shut­down.

The vi­o­lence de­liv­ered to a “bobolee” ef­fi­gy of Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Bar­ry Padarath, would nor­mal­ly be con­sid­ered part of our na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal cul­ture. How­ev­er, the re­cent death threats against him and oth­er min­is­ters, as well as the po­lit­i­cal as­sas­si­na­tion of US Re­pub­li­can Par­ty spokesman Char­lie Kirk, re­mind us of how fierce­ly some peo­ple hold their po­lit­i­cal views. Some are even pre­pared to kill for them. Are our politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors safe in Trin­ba­go?

Are our cit­i­zens safe from the shift­ing sands of glob­al geopol­i­tics? Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez has warned us, along with Guyana and the US, “do not dare” (to do what?).

PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed, “I will dare to…keep the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go safe.”

She al­so re­peat­ed her in­vi­ta­tion to the US gov­ern­ment if Venezuela in­vades Guyana. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be at­tend­ing the 80th ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, her first of­fi­cial en­gage­ment abroad since as­sum­ing of­fice. We an­tic­i­pate the strength­en­ing of re­la­tions with var­i­ous na­tions to pro­mote trade and en­sure that we can steer clear of any in­ter­na­tion­al con­flicts. The se­lec­tion of her act­ing prime min­is­ter will be in­struc­tive.

Is­rael’s at­tack on a Hamas meet­ing, which took place in Qatar, vi­o­lat­ed a diplo­mat­ic safe zone. Is­raeli Pres­i­dent Ne­tanyahu in­di­cat­ed that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had fore­knowl­edge of the bomb­ing. Will the Unit­ed States main­tain its unipo­lar­i­ty, or will new glob­al fo­rums fa­cil­i­tate the rise of Chi­na and/or the “Glob­al South?” How can we ex­ploit the chang­ing con­texts while en­sur­ing that we avoid any pos­si­ble con­flicts?

In the wake of the bomb­ing of a sus­pect­ed “nar­co-ter­ror­ist” boat by the US Navy, 268 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na with an es­ti­mat­ed street val­ue of $29 mil­lion were seized off the Point Fortin coast­line. Did the US Navy tip off our Coast Guard, or did they make the bust all on their own? Such in­ci­dents vin­di­cate the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on work­ing with the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment in the war on “nar­co-tourism.”