A LESSON IN LEADERSHIP
I WAS hoping that at least a handful of TT’s leaders would have seen former South African President Nelson Mandela go public with the cause of his son’s death — Aids. If they had perhaps a few of our politicos might have learned the most valuable lesson of all: real leaders understand the importance of being honest and do not engage in juvenile games of hide and seek. This particular administration should have been forced to view the Mandela footage: it is by far becoming too fond of government by secrecy. Just look at its conduct in the past week. A daily newspaper reports that a Coast Guard plane carrying the Prime Minister took a nose dive last weekend and no one responds. There is no statement of confirmation or denial. Instead the Minister of National Security, Martin Joseph spends his time dispatching a silly letter to the LA Times in which he demands an apology because the American newspaper has dared to write about kidnappings in Trinidad and Tobago. He embarrasses himself and his country by talking about a “favourable reduction” in kidnappings, as if his statistics will reassure the LA Times and all of us that TT is safe.
What about the confusion surrounding the closure of TT’s first and only public broadcasting network? For weeks everyone had been asking about the live coverage of this year’s Carnival shows. No answers were forthcoming, not from the National Carnival Commission, not from anyone in Government. Answers were equally lacking in response to questions over the future of the Lotto and Play Whe draws. What was going on? Why all the mystery? Was it that the Government was trying to hide from the public that it had left the negotiations of these shows for the last minute? Rumour was that talks were being held with the CCN group to air the shows but that these had broken down at the last minute and that two NBN channels, Four and Sixteen, would broadcast from the NBN Maraval Road studio. But no one was saying anything, so this was all pure speculation.
Even when Public Administration and Information Minister Dr Lenny Saith finally announced that the National Carnival Commission would be broadcasting the 2005 Carnival shows on Channels Four and Sixteen, he refused to say what was happening with the Lotto and Play Whe games. The Government seemed to have planned the demise of NBN a long time ago, so it should not have brought the curtain down on this national institution so ungracefully. It should and could have honoured the talent, decades of work and dedication of NBN’s staff as a real Government would. It could have held an open house. It could have been more decent to and honest with NBN’s staff. No one seemed to care about NBN’s last days, just that these had to come. Well, what else are we to conclude?
The PNM really should have watched Mandela. Its practice of evading questions and giving no information is hurting, not helping it. In its clumsy handling of the end of NBN last week the administration struck itself a bad political blow because the populace now thinks that it is handing over the nation’s resources to its people and that these will eventually run and control NBN’s usurper, the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG). Word on the street is that there is really no difference between the UNC and the PNM. People are saying that 2002 brought exchange, not change. The people of Trinidad and Tobago now also have more questions about public television and radio than before. Questions such as what the structure, format and mandate of CNMG will be. What will happen to NBN’s Maraval Road and Morvant studios? Will these be used for television and the renovated 610 Building transformed into a new radio station.
One of the principle questions surrounding the closure Friday of NBN was why shut it down at all. Why not use the very foreign experts to help NBN become self-sustaining if not profit-making? Instead of spending millions in VSEP, millions to renovate the 610 Building, millions more one assumes to set up a new company, many are asking if the very money cannot be employed to restructure NBN to make it more modern and competitive. They are also speculating whether and how the new company will be less easily manipulated by successive administrations. Again no one will say. There is yet another uncertainty. The name of the new company, the Caribbean New Media Group suggests that its target audience will be more regional than local. In the absence of information, one is moved to wonder if TT’s taxpayers are soon going to foot the bill so others in the Caribbean can watch and hear PNM propaganda.
It is not an unreasonable supposition. The PNM has spent most of its tenure flying high regionally. LIAT occupies a first class seat in Cabinet while BWIA is being told to occupy one in the economy section; the flooded farmers feel they have been given a pittance compared to the victims of Hurricane Ivan. The citizenry doesn’t wish to be short-sighted or to be selfish, but it is starting to believe it has to suffer in the name of obscure PNM foreign policy objectives; to “hold strain” while other Caribbean countries receive this regime’s continuing largesse. Many of TT’s citizens are feeling neglected, treated with contempt in matters involving their resources and money. A pall of anger, resentment and confusion covers the country today and it will not be blown away with mirages of a perfect TT in 2020 or with hot air leaks about house raids or UNC corruption. It will only clear when the Government starts levelling with the public like Nelson Mandela did.
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"A LESSON IN LEADERSHIP"