Keep State enterprises in line...or else

Delivering the main address yesterday at the People’s National Movement(PNM) Diego Martin 45th Constituency Conference at St Anthony’s College, Westmoorings in which he spoke on a range of issues pertinent to this year’s budget, Rowley said that late submission of financial reports was replete across the State enterprises sector. “It is against that background,” he said, “that a lot of the corruption, the waste and the mismanagement is taking place because you never know what is going on until it is too late.” The circular which will be “very firm and clear”, he said, managers have grown accustom to living better than most people in the country. These are the most comfortable people in the country, and you ask yourself, what do they do for the days’s work, he asked, when the important thing to come from them, a report on how they spent the money the year before was not forthcoming.

Many of the reports, he noted, are required in the Parliament.

“The time has come for this nonsense to stop,” he said noting that many are presented to the Parliament “seven, eight, nine, ten years after” they are due.

The Government he leads, he said, is going to put an end to that. “We want next year’s report on time,” he said.

Managers who cannot produce financial statements in time do not deserve to manage public money, he said to sustained applause.

“It cannot be that we are fighting to make ends meet,” he said, “and there is a class of people who couldn’t care less, and who wouldn’t report to you how they wasted last year’s money, but demanding more and more, from less and less. That is an immediate change that will take place in this country.” A few days ago, he was speaking to a minister of the Cabinet, complaining about this situation, he said, “and the minister with a big smile on his face is going to tell me that we are going to get the 2009 report by December.” He did not name the minister.

When asked him what he meant, he said, “his smile got broader because something is being accomplished” because the 2009 report will be in by December.

On a softer note, he said that it does not matter how bad someone’s circumstances may be in Trinidad and Tobago, “somebody else’s is worse”, as he referred to hurricane ravaged and disaster prone Haiti. Noting that banks operating locally will today open accounts to facilitate financial contributions to Haiti, he appealed to citizens and residents to give generously to people of Haiti to rebuilt their country.

“We talk about pressure and poverty here,” he said, “You don’t know what pressure and poverty is until...think about Haiti and let’s be our brother’s keeper.”