Paging Dr Rowley

Today I’m calling on Minister of Housing Dr Keith Rowley to take immediate, decisive and punitive action against his Prime Minister. Readers, especially Balisier bearers, please don’t misquote me; don’t go telling people, “You know that what that Suzanne Mills tell Rowley to do? To pelt Manning with teacups!” There is no need for a single piece of china to be smashed. The only muscle Rowley has to flex is his ministerial might. With this he can stop the Prime Minister from his undemocratic, obscene scheme to takeover the Red House.  For what is Manning with his Red House plans if not a brass faced squatter to be? And what is Rowley if not a Minister who has declared his determination to eradicate squatting? So now, Rowley must show that his anti-squatting laws apply to all and he must stop his PM from his quite illicit plan to occupy the Red House. Furthermore, the Minister must use the same zeal he did when he evicted the squatters of Cashew Gardens and Wallerfield earlier this year.

“Anarchy!” Rowley had declared in his and his Government’s defence a few months ago when he put people out of their homes. “Here you have a planned development on the drawing board, but persons have gone and taken possession of the site and are doing their own thing. This is anarchy!” Well Minister, isn’t this exactly what Manning is doing in his hostile takeover of the Red House? Parliament (including Manning) voted for the Red House to be renovated for its sole use as TT’s legislature. Now, Manning suffering from his Red House Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (RHOCD) is taking possession of the building for his office. Is Manning then not behaving like a squatter and doing his own thing? Worse, he’s so determined to have his own way, he persuaded Cabinet in July to take a decision permitting him to start occupying the Red House immediately, to squeeze its current tenants into a corner and bit by bit, push them out altogether. Renovation designs were secretly changed without the slightest reference to Parliament so Manning, by hook or crook, can get his foot in the Red House door and stake claim to the building. Even squatters don’t push others out of their own homes.  

The Prime Minister is not just acting as if he’s TT’s number one squatter, though; he’s behaving like a typical dictator. When earlier this year I used the word “dictatorial” to describe Manning’s conduct with regard to the Red House, PNMites came out of the woodwork like mindless termites to defend Manning and scold me. Basdeo Panday they argued was a dictator. My response to them was and still is, “You think Panday started out that way? Remember what Robinson said about a creeping dictatorship? You let a Prime Minister takeover your Parliament and you are encouraging him to believe he can do as he pleases.” I ask these PNMites what they think a dictator does. Well, it’s simple: he dictates, which by any dictionary definition, means to speak or act domineeringly, to issue an order, to impose, pronounce, or specify authoritatively on something. Is this not what Manning has done with the Red House? Dictate to us his plans and expect us to go along with him because he’s the Prime Minister?

He has not consulted Parliament on the Red House issue; he has dismissed the objections of his population and has the gall to boast to “Trinis” resident in New York on whom his actions have no impact that he knows best, or at least better than citizens and groups living in Trinidad and Tobago who have criticised him.  He has also brushed aside serious worries about the millions that will be misspent when Government should be concentrating its resources on more pressing problems and particularly on education, health and social services. Why not ensure that every child has free books, transport to and fro school, uniforms, and a meal; that every citizen has the best of health care and does not have to suffer in the hospitals? Why not use the money and build some new prisons? What about local government? Its budget is miniscule and as a result, people everywhere are suffering from a lack of services. No, instead the Prime Minister prefers a shiny Port of Spain, a spanking big Red House office overlooking Woodford Square, a Whitehall for entertaining his guests and the rest of the nation in a mess. If this PM is not suffering from RHOCD, then he’s the silliest, most superficial leader we’ve ever had, even if he thinks he’s Caricom’s godfather and an international statesman.

He’s also quite disingenuous. In seeking to justify his Red House occupation, he’s telling people that the Red House has historically been the seat of government and not of parliament and that when he first went to the Red House it housed courts, government offices and the legislature. The PM deliberately forgets that the Red House is the only place the modern, independent Parliament of TT has occupied; that when all arms of State shared the Red House, it was way back when they probably didn’t need that much space. He also misses the point that the best of moves was to separate the branches physically for this sent a powerful statement about the importance of the separation of powers in a young democratic country. This Prime Minister is taking us back in time by joining the executive and legislature in the same building. He knows well that as long as he’s in the south end of the Red House and Parliament in the northern end, he’ll have dominion over the entire building and all that goes on within it.

You know what I want to know? Why are the usual self-serving, self-righteous business groups not objecting to the PM’s plans? If they believe the  PM’s Red House squatting scheme does not affect them, they are not only selfish; they are short-sighted. Between Works Minister Franklyn Khan’s grand new and unnecessary drainage scheme for PoS and Manning’s plans to knock down and reconstruct everything in sight, the capital city will be chaos. Merchants will lose sales. Oh and where are the loud mouths who threatened to file for judicial review? Gone silent. Well, I don’t intend to shut up. And once again I am warning the people of TT: you give a leader an inch he becomes a dictator overnight. I’m also advising Manning that several of his citizens are growing weary of him, a PM they voted into power because they had little choice. Many people are telling me they feel as if the country is spinning backward to colonial times, that the UNC was a more progressive government. 

I in turn reply that there is another man who like Manning once thought he could do as he wanted. His name is George W Bush. Licks in Iraq and four hurricanes are teaching him that he’s nothing, but a mere mortal. Manning would do well to remember his own political mortality.  In his feverish, unpopular bid to make the Red House his home, he might just be laying track for another “gouti” to run.
suz@itrini.com