The power of the written word

There are situations however where the advice being given and the recommendations being made are so blatantly obvious to all and clearly the way to go, yet they are ignored by the people who have the power to implement them.

On those occasions I wish that the power of the written word was as powerful as the power of the spoken word.

That’s our dilemma. It’s not.

There are quite a few of these situations that are being ignored on an ongoing basis.

I agree that some of these situations would require things like a mindset and/or culture change, financial resources and political will. Examples of those that rank in these categories are the justice system, the hospital management and healthcare system, and the education system.

We can all just hope that these challenges can be faced and overcome soon.

But there are those that can be fixed with very little effort, which may simply require a management decision and follow-up, eg: 1) Road maintenance, ie, the timely fixing of potholes and minor road repairs.

2) Traffic management (we solved one of those problems recently).

3) The ongoing maintenance of public buildings like schools and courthouses.

When one visits other countries and notice certain things being done, eg how teeny-weeny potholes are being fixed on highways and the cleaners at some public parks are walking around picking up chewing gum and bits of paper, its amazes one that public corporations can make the time to deal with these details.

TT does not have to be that good or aim that high. All we have to do is concentrate on those annoying areas that make our life in TT miserable, like those three mentioned above. I wish there was some way we could deal with the road hogs, but that’s a culture problem.

I always assumed that one of the functions of the press/ media was to expose wrongdoing and bad practices so that people would be aware that other people were watching them and how they were affecting people adversely.

The effect should have been to make them feel shame so they would stop. But it is either that the people whom it should influence are not reading the newspapers or that they are shameless.

A Webster via email