All the wrong things

We also need to know that much of what is going wrong is not driven by our failings, but are carefully planned under the heading of corruption. While rank stupidity is a severe handicap to our development, corruption, deliberately obscured by feigned stupidity is by far the greater impediment to us becoming a just and fair society.

Almost anything and everything is allowed to happen here. Regulations and laws are ignored, bent and broken to favour those among us who have long learned to do what they want without seeking permission, regardless of the effect their actions have on others or on our environment. And when we do happen to make wise decisions and implement positive initiatives, we will soon do something negative to cancel the good that had been achieved.

Over the past few years, the area known now as Nelson Mandela Park had been improved with sporting facilities, a children’s playground and floodlighting. The grass on the playing field was being cared for and the whole area had become alive in the evenings and late into the nights, as hundreds of persons and families availed themselves of the sporting opportunities.

But a large portion of the park has just been lost to its users, and people have been deprived of their opportunities for exercise and sport. A circus has been set up there. One must wonder why on this location. In the past, circuses and fairs had been set up in the Queen’s Park Savannah. So why is this circus being established at Nelson Mandela Park? Where are patrons going to park? How are the circus and the ongoing CPL cricket at the Oval going to affect each other? If either the Oval or the circus (or both?) need to be evacuated for any reason, where are the patrons going to gather? Surely, for safety, commuter convenience, and crowd management, these two events do not need to be happening adjacent to each other, while the savannah remains available and adjacent? And will the circus, when they move on, leave the field at Nelson Mandela Park clean and usable for sports? Who approves these decisions, and on what basis are the decisions made? Or, was any approval granted? This past week we learned, once again, of the presence of alien Chinese workers on local construction projects. And we are not talking about construction projects awarded by our governments to major Chinese contractors. We know that such projects are realms unto themselves, designed and built by Chinese contractors, using solely Chinese labour, with no proper oversight by local engineers or architects.

Skilled and talented locals are excluded from these projects as a matter of policy, a policy obviously approved by our successive governments.

But it appears (Surprise! Surprise!) that there are smaller, private sector construction projects which are excluding local talent to utilize illegal Chinese labour, who live in appalling conditions on the sites, to build their buildings. The arrest and detention of Chinese workers on a downtown project this past week illustrates an ongoing breach of local labour and immigration laws. So we may deport the Chinese eventually. But what about the people who have “hired” these workers? Will they be required to answer for what they are doing? We doubt that, for we know that “hotel owners” who hire overseas prostitutes never seem to have to answer for their businesses. Only the whores are ever charged.

And what of the project where the Chinese workers were arrested? Who did the design work? Was it a local engineer or architect? Was the project approved by the Town & Country Planning Division and the City Council? Persons who use slave labour on their projects are not likely to seek the required building approvals. So many follow- up questions exist on the arrest of the slave labourers (but not the slave employer eh?), but not questions we bother to pursue.

And finally for this week, but we will come back to this item again, I note the speech of the Minister of Works to the Arima community last week. The Minister spoke of the roads he was contemplating, and I have no problem with what he promised—highways to Sangre Grande, Manzanilla and Toco—but rather with what he omitted. The Arima Blanchisseuse Road is collapsing, and this is being caused by deforestation for “gardens”. The cutting of forested slopes in the Northern Range is the prime cause of landslips and road failures.

M r Minister, with all due respect, this road must be your priority when talking to Arimians!