PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW

Saturday’s pompous warning to the media by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Geoffrey Henderson, that he would no longer tolerate leaks and publication of sensitive information regarding high profile investigations should be viewed not merely as an attack on the media but also as an attack on the public’s right to be informed. One of the biggest problems facing Trinidad and Tobago today is the lack of readily available information to the media and by extension the public, whether on State matters or issues of public concern. The Government of the country all too often indulges in feet dragging in Parliament with respect to the answering of questions submitted by the Opposition. There are questions posed by the Opposition, crucial to public understanding of issues, that have gone unanswered for lengthy periods by relevant Government Ministers.

And while the problem of Ministerial tardiness, given the principle of the Separation of Powers, is not the concern of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, nonetheless the public, on whose behalf the Opposition acts, will either look to the media to unearth the information or it must sit back as good little boys and girls while Government fiddles. Had the media not pressed for a fresh inquest into the death of Akiel Chambers, the little boy who died in mysterious circumstances in a pool, when he attended the birthday party at a fellow student’s home, it may never have been held. There have been cases in the past of reported Police shootings at which the media has plugged away until belated action was taken. The media played no little part in the decision to bring Dole Chadee to justice for the murder of several members of the Baboolal family.

The DPP has admitted in one breath, albeit patronisingly, that the media had often been the population’s weapon for the exposing of corruption. Yet in virtually the same breath the DPP has been pointedly critical of articles published in the media last month of public officials reportedly to be charged for alleged involvement in corruption in the Piarco International Airport project. What does Henderson expect the media to do, sit and wait passively until Prime Minister Patrick Manning holds his weekly post Cabinet news conference, or until the Government determines the time is right to answer Opposition questions, or until there is a Commission of Inquiry, or persons are arrested and charged before the Courts?

The public has a right to know, to be informed, and we wish to notify the DPP that is exactly what we intend to continue to do where matters of public concern are involved.  We are not afraid of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He has his job to do and we have ours, and as in the past we shall neither falter nor fail nor for that matter prostrate ourselves before officialdom. If we break the law the DPP knows what to do. Had it not been for the media a great deal of corruption in Trinidad and Tobago may never have been exposed. The media’s intervention stretches back for decades. It was the media’s plugging away in the 1940s that forced a colonial Administration to have the inquiry into the Caura Dam corruption scandal.

It was the media that pressured another colonial Government to hold the Gomes Commission of Inquiry into corruption in the Port-of-Spain City Council in the 1950s. It was the media that spoke out against the attempted coup by the Jamaat al Muslimeen in July 1990, and kept the public informed even in the face of the armed insurrection and threat. We are proud to be willing heirs to the heritage of the unearthing of truth, and will carry on the long thankless struggle for the public’s right to be kept informed. It is, we should not have to remind the DPP, our raison d’etre.