Pouring oil on troubled waters

Oil sits on top of water, and the water tends to stop washing around so much with that other substance on top of it. Therefore, if you pour oil on water that is sloshing around, it will calm things down. I guess the Honourable Prime Minister remembers her idioms from the “Students’ Companion” way back when we used to read, write, and do arithmetic in primary school.

She announced the “Jubilee discovery” of crude oil on the eve of a PP meeting with the angry, agitated leaders of the PP coalition, as if to pour oil on troubled waters to calm them down! Will they allow themselves to be calmed down by this “amazing oil discovery”, which the Government seemed to be holding close to their chest, since timing is everything in Trinidad politics!

Most of the ministers and their financial backers in this Government seem intent on toeing the line, in the hopes that some of that oil money will “trickle and ooze” down into their pockets, and the wealth of TT continues to be concentrated and amassed into the accounts of less than one percent in TT!

Well, let us see if this “Jubilee Discovery” will calm the angry waters of TT, let us see if it will calm the citizens of TT and the other members of the coalition! Or is it just a matter of time until we say to our beloved PM, “Don’t pour oil on troubled waters”! It won’t make a difference if the current power structures continue to oppress the people of TT, and continue to attempt to anesthetise us with handouts, welfare programmes, and trickle down economics, instead of real productive employment for all our citizens! Let us hope that the members of this Government, their friends, family, financial backers, and all those who benefit financially from this Government, ministers included, will not continue to “get fatter”, as they greedily “drink the oil” and live of the “fat of this land”, which is meant for the benefit of all the citizens of TT! The obesity problem is already out of control in TT, according to the Minister of Health!

JENNA CALLENDER

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