‘If priest could play, who is we’?

Internationally, there is growing distrust with individuals and organisations in public life. The annual United Kingdom Mori survey of trust in public life showed doctors, teachers, professors and judges ranging from 91 percent to 72 percent on a trust scale. On the other hand, politicians, journalists, government ministers and business leaders were at the bottom of the scale ranging from 18 percent to 28 percent. Research by Cambridge academic David Halpern shows that people are becoming more suspicious of each other. In the late 1950’s, 60 percent of Britons believed other people could generally be trusted.

In the early 1980’s this figure fell to 44 percent. This year the figure fell even lower to 29 per cent and is still falling. Social trust differs from country to country. Britain, the US, Australia and Ireland have seen declining levels of social trust. By contrast, Denmark and Sweden, where nearly 70 per cent of the population say they trust others, are the most trusting in Europe. France has one of the lowest levels, about 20 percent. Rising affluence, leading to a more self-gratifying and fractured society is cited as the main factor behind declining social trust. Affluence is accompanied by greater social mobility, high divorce rates, more short-term contracts, greater commercial pressures, and a tendency to see strangers as competitors. In many TT neighbourhoods, rising affluence has led households to be self-centred, to be unaware of their neighbours’ names, lifestyles, problems or even their existence. Where community life has ceased to exist there can be no community trust. However, the advent of Neighbourhood Watch Groups, especially where they become involved in community building activities in addition to the basic task of “watching” may lead to a revival of trust within communities. One must question whether people claim to be distrustful of institutions but act differently despite evidence. TIDCO is blamed by the public and by vendors at Maracas Bay for neglect of its development and maintenance.

Yet happy hordes of holidayers frequent the waters at Maracas Beach and also Chaguaramas, despite its contamination by human faecal and other matter.   Despite studies which show that WASA pipe water is undoubtedly as healthy as filtered bottled water it has become commonplace to patronise bottled water in restaurants, offices and homes. The consumption of fast foods remains attractive and unabated even by informed members of the population who are aware of research on the adverse effects of fast foods, consumption of which leads to obesity and the resultant diabetic and cardiac diseases already prevalent in Trinidad and Tobago. Perhaps there is no deep-seated lack of trust in these areas. It may be that there is simply suspicion, not strong enough to be energised into complete lack of trust.  Or it could be that people are becoming more demanding in what they expect from service organisations.

Counter measures aimed at preventing breaches of trust can exacerbate the problems already existent. The decline in confidence in institutions has resulted in an accountability revolution, a regime of regulation, inspection, target-setting and audit. In her Reith lectures Ms O’Neill argued that this was in many ways making matters worse. Changes designed to make them more accountable to the public in practice made them more subject to central control. Far from increasing public trust, they often had the opposite effect. Reports of mistrust had grown during the years in which the accountability revolution made striking advances. Her advice was: “If we want a culture of public service, professionals and public servants must in the end be free to serve the public rather than their paymasters.” Politicians are traditionally targets of lack of trust. Trust in governments worldwide to place the nation’s needs above party or individual interests and greed has continued to decline. The ongoing dialogue about possible manipulation of evidence by The Coalition of governments which promoted the 2003 war in Iraq, ironically to gain public trust in the merit of that war, has helped bring about this decline.
 
Another area of public concern is corporate greed exemplified by excessive executive salaries and perks. The public regards such executives as citizens with no moral conscience and consequently no authority to pronounce on crime and other ills in the country.  Where companies provide substandard goods and services while paying excessive salaries to senior executives the public attitude may be “if the priest could play who is we.” Under such circumstances why should the ordinary worker aim at high standards. The Enron debacle was the first of many corporate scandals in the USA characterised by fraud and manipulation. Compensating committees routinely awarded skyrocketing executive pay to poorly performing CEOs, fallen leaders were awarded gargantuan severance packages, Board Directors were appointed because they had ties to their companies rather than for competence and independence, directors were stretched thin by belonging to too many boards, accounting tricks were used to boost revenue and earnings. The growing worldwide phenomenon of lack of trust in public life is a high cost of the modern trend of individualism and the evidence is that this phenomenon is increasingly an issue in Trinidad and Tobago.
(The first part of this column appeared in last week’s Business Day)  

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Guardian Life. You are invited to send your comments to guardianlife@ghl.co.tt