WE LOOK FOR DAT

But you know what I have to say about Patrick Manning’s increasing displays of contempt for his citizens? We look for dat and for a hell of a lot worse. You see, we are simply too apathetic. The only thing at which we excel is talk and more talk. We can complain for hours on end like no one else, but we seldom take any action. Let me ask you a question. How many of you living in PNM constituencies have thought of writing a letter to your MPs warning them that they will lose your support if the Government doesn’t stop the Tarouba madness? Wouldn’t this course of action be more effective than the daily whining? A few thousand of these letters would make any parliamentarian realise that he was under some serious pressure, especially one whose seat was marginal.

But many of you will not do that. You’ll find a million excuses why letter-writing or any form of protest will not work and you will say things such as "But, what a letter will do? He’s the Prime Minister. He has all the power."

Yet others will be thinking only of yourselves and though you know that building this stadium is a waste of money, you’ll toss principle overboard because you don’t want to rock a boat that might ferry you to wealth and status.

As for you, the party members, you are ever prepared to defend any and all of your Prime Minister’s decisions and actions. He can do what he wants with your money because it’s always party and race before country and you don’t know that membership in a political organisation doesn’t mean becoming a rubber stamp for the party leadership. So tell me we don’t look for the $850 million down the drain and the insults from Manning.

You think I’m being harsh, unfair? Let me ask you another question. What did we do when Manning made his wife a minister in 2001? Not very much.

Many of us were arguing that Hazel should be given a chance-she was a nice lady. As if that was the point. Others were bleating that the Prime Minister was free to appoint whom he wanted to his Cabinet. We didn’t want to contemplate that her appointment was a signal that Patrick Manning was interested principally in himself, that he was unprepared to be accountable to his employers, the people of Trinidad and Tobago. It didn’t bother us a bit that he was abusing his office. We didn’t care that he might have violated the Integrity in Public Life Act by appointing Hazel to his Cabinet. We still do not.

Did we react as we should have to the Prime Minister’s announcement that he was going to spend millions and millions on a programme called CEPEP, but that there was going to be no transparency in the award of contracts and that its workers would not receive training so they could eventually go on to greener pastures, if you will, and thus independence? Did we understand the dangers the programme posed to local Government whose budget is woefully inadequate? Do we grasp now the further emasculation of local Government if the central Government is allowed to run a company to take care of our communities’ infrastructural needs, instead of giving the corporations the money and thus, the power they deserve? Are we concerned that this company will probably ignore every tender rule in the book and that more contracts will go "to the boys"? The answer to all these questions is "no". That’s why we more than look for Tarouba.

What about when the Prime Minister announced he was taking over our Parliament, without having consulted either the MPs or the people? This most undemocratic of declarations should have sounded the alarm in all of us.

We should have been scandalised by Manning’s plan because it showed a Prime Minister with no regard for us or our institutions, a Prime Minister prepared to use his clout to get anything he wanted. Instead we shrugged our shoulders, swallowed Manning’s ridiculous excuses about the lack of space in the Red House and said, "Well, he’s the Prime Minister." And that was that.

We didn’t bombard his office with letters telling him just what we thought of his plan. No church, organisation or MP organised a mass protest. None of TT’s well-heeled citizens considered using their wealth to file for judicial review of the PM’s dictatorial decision. So, the Prime Minister went ahead with his grand design, an ecstatic man who was very grateful to his people for their shortsightedness, indifference and lethargy. Manning well realised that if he could get away with a move like that he could get away with anything. Were we not asking then for Manning to now call us, the taxpayers, the electorate, a bunch of Toms, Dicks and Harrys?

We were certainly looking for our spendthrift Prime Minister to take $850 million to build an unnecessary stadium (and make multi-millionaires of already wealthy contractors) while we continue to suffer and die in the nation’s hospitals, while we are forced to hold fund-raisers to pay for critical surgery, while all a four-year-old boy who is going blind can get is the paltry sum of $15,000 from the Ministry of Health, while we are bawling over the cost of schoolbooks, while we lose more man-hours, crops and property to flash flooding, while schools, courts, hospitals and police stations need repairing and rebuilding, while people are starving, while our roads are full of potholes, and while we really should be looking to build world class sportsmen before we erect any mammoth sports arenas to create the illusion that we are First World. We have earned Manning’s contempt and will continue to merit it. Have we truly done all we can to stop Tarouba? Will we?

I’ll tell you one more thing, though. If we do not act now, just imagine how the Prime Minister will behave if he gets his absolute majority in 2007. Better yet. Don’t think about it. Don’t do anything. That’s the Trini way of facing reality and that’s why we more than look for dat.

suz@itrini.com