Red, white, black and ready

In TT , a land of less than two million people and a land mass smaller than many states in North America, we can’t seem to get the basics right.

We have a more than adequate water supply and elevated hills to ensure that every area in TT is supplied with an uninterrupted water supply fed by gravity, yet we struggle with pumps and a system of management that is imbecilic at best.

We have more than enough fertile lands to feed our population, yet our lands are abandoned and occupied by squatters while we import the majority of our food.

We have some of the best natural sites in the world, a pitch lake, caves with oil birds and pools, waterfalls, swamps and a bird sanctuary, yet none of these sites is managed as a business with parking, toilet facilities, guides, gift shops and security.

Our communities depend on a centralised system of governance and consequently our remote villages and towns remain in a state of underdevelopment and decay.

In spite of talk and more talk, the Licensing Department on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, continues to be closed early after years of attempts to repair the office.

Justice is exceedingly slow and there continues to be cases before the court lingering for over ten years.

Criminals operate throughout the lands with impunity.

While this is the undeniable state of our nation, our politicians seek somehow to gain praise for their works.

Recently in the Parliament, a past prime minister boasted that under her administration TT earned more money than at any time in the history of our nation.

This contribution was followed up shortly afterwards with a member of her team begging for roads to be repaired in her constituency — an area that is one of the so-called strongholds of a political organisation that just boasted of money not being a problem.

Things cannot continue along the same path that we have been on since independence.

The divisiveness and blind loyalty to party have to be converted to loyalty to country. We are better together.

The Prime Minister recently commented on the love that a supermarket employee showed to a customer as a symbol of what is good in TT .

Today I call on the Prime Minister to spearhead the effort towards unity in our nation.

Let the effort of that young woman cause us to look within ourselves and see the good in others, regardless of their race, religion or political affiliation.

Reach out to the business community and encourage them to invest in agriculture.

Let us together make each waterfall, swamp, cave, beach, mountain and river business units in partnership with the communities and business so that our tourism package will be enhanced.

Let us together look at getting rid of the backlog of court cases through plea bargaining and dismissals to ensure that our justice system inspires hope for conflict resolution.

The task ahead is not a PNM problem and the PNM cannot solve it alone.

The country’s problems are national and we must all solve them together.

That can only happen if, for the sake of our nation and our children, we are willing to put aside our sectarian interests and with the invitation of the Prime Minister and the PNM embark on working together to plot the way forward for a better TT .

STEVE ALVAREZ via email