Tell the PM

THE EDITOR: The Governor of the Central Bank said that increasing salaries would tend to further increase inflation. Why does he not advise the government to reduce/reschedule their gross building programme. As this is the main factor responsible for the present spiralling inflation rate.
The Central Bank’s governor also said that some countries which are presently experiencing an oil boom tend to use this opportunity to press ahead with critical projects.
In my opinion, erecting sky scrapers in Port-of-Spain, to house civil servants will only increasing traffic jams and gas bills, further increasing the loss of man hours and adding to pollution.
Rebuilding East Port-of-Spain in the manner the government projects, is going to result in the closure of hundreds of small businesses, also the removal of hundreds of poor residents.
To date these residents and the HDC have no idea of their new location.
I am however, sure that they are going to be faced with higher rents and transport costs. Also loss of jobs.
The Governor of the Central Bank should point out to the Prime Minister that critical projects which need to be addressed as far as the citizens of TT are concerned are listed below: Repair and rebuild schools needed, enlarge and retrain our teaching service. rebuild police stations, increase and properly retrain our police officers and effect proper management training for those in charge, build small hospitals in strategic areas of the island, install proper equipment and management, review our need to replace rotten water lines and resurface bad roads, enforce a system where water lines are replaced before roads are resurfaced, remodel and upgrade our fire services, repair water mains system, install proper management, install a system where all vehicles or equipment purchased by government are under a contract where suppliers will be responsible for repairs.
These repairs must be effected during a set period, or replacement vehicles/equipment will be supplied until repairs are completed.
On 9/8/06 the TV channel BBC ran a programme showing how the country Norway invests and controls its oil money. Our Prime Minister and his techno-smarts should allocate some of their time to view this programme.

VICTOR JARDINE
Woodbrook