Parliamentary Digest

In Dr Shastri Moonan, as several members of the public have already noted, the executive of the United National Congress could not have found a more accurate reflection.

It took Moonan only 45 minutes after his swearing in to fall asleep as the Upper House debated an amendment to the Tourism Development Act. Moonan later claimed that he was never asleep, just resting his eyes. If so, this required him to sink his double chin firmly on his chest and breathe with a slow, shallow rhythm.

But Moonan’s later denial also singled him out as a mirror of a UNC executive which contains individuals like Jack Warner and Vasant Bharath.

Make no mistake, though. The man’s CV, which was handed out by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s public relations people, is very impressive. He has an MA in Law and Diplomacy and a PhD in Technology Policy and Management. His BA is in economics, and he also has a law degree. But that only made the contrast with his enervated posture and the monotonic speaking style with which he took the oath all the more marked.

The UNC’s other Senator hijabed insurance executive Raziah Ahmed. Ahmed’s CV had a peculiar start: her Objective, put in the form of an attempted poem, was “To spontaneously orchestrate and guide/My own behaviour/So that all those with whom I interact/Will come to internalise/In their own lives/A strong sense of moral and spiritual responsibility/And the greatest value/And the blessed virtue.”

Ahmed’s failure to understand that something cannot be both spontaneous and orchestrated, and the lack of definition of the “greatest value” and “blessed virtue”, gives some hint why the UNC executive chose her and why she accepted.

Neither of the new UNC senators contributed to the debate that afternoon. The Bill before the Senate was an amendment which would ensure that Caricom nationals living in other countries who owned an “approved tourism project” in Trinidad and Tobago would not end up paying taxes twice, once in TT and once in their country of residence. The Bill was presented by Tourism Minister Howard Chin Lee, who spent about ten minutes outlining what he described as a “simple amendment”. UNC Senator Wade Mark raised several objections, with his usual air of a man grasping at straws. He wanted to know what was the point of such an amendment when crime was so high. “It is dangerous to travel to Tobago,” Mark declared, “so who is going to be attracted to this particular incentive?” And, just as portentously, he expressed concern about more tourists coming to TT: “I am asking the question, is the infrastructure in place?” And, stabbing an emphatic finger in the thin air, he declared, “I am worried, Madam President, about the drug trade!”

However, the contribution from the Independent bench was hardly any better, since it was made by Senator Kenneth Ramchand. “I will be very brief,” Ramchand began, but this was only the first of his false premises. Ramchand likes to pontificate on economic policies, but has made no attempt to educate himself about economic principles. So he suggested that the money that would be “lost” by concessions should be given to the other Caricom territories for them to develop their infrastructure. “Why are we throwing away money — let me say it — for a bunch of capitalists?” he asked. Ramchand objected to individuals and corporations benefiting from

exemptions “but the member states of Caricom are not benefiting.” This was nothing but standard socialist rhetoric, so Ramchand was apparently unaware of the failure of socialist economies all around the world within the past 20 years.

He was also worried about an amendment which didn’t say whether “nationals” who would be exempt had to be nationals of TT or Caricom (although exactly what else “national” could possibly mean in that context Ramchand did not say). So he wanted the term precisely defined because he didn’t want “investors from all other places coming up and setting up these tourism projects.” It seemed that in Economics 101 as taught by literature professors, investment is only good when done by locals. Indeed, Ramchand even declared his fervent desire for the Aliens Landholding Act - a piece of legislation that had discouraged foreign investment for years - to be restored.

This insular perspective has proven anathema to small economies, but Ramchand belongs to that class of intellectuals who never let facts interfere with ideological belief. His call for the restoration of the Aliens Landholding Act had nothing to do with economics but because the Act’s removal contributed to “the alienation of place” of citizens. Even the one issue he raised that made economic sense — developing agriculture — was presented in a form that ensured unworkability: he wanted the Government to present an Agricultural Bill which would specify a series of projects that people would get assistance with. No doubt the success of governments - the Soviet Union and China come to mind - in telling people what to grow and sell informed Ramchand’s recommendations.

Whether new Senator Moonan, with his background in economics and management, would have said anything more sensible cannot be known. But, to judge from his confused expression for the rest of the session after his 15-minute “eye rest,” perhaps not.