Gobbledygook, Mr Khan

IN THE wake of extensive flooding in various parts of Trinidad, Works Minister Franklin Khan says the Government may have to consider whether to become “more draconian” in its planning policies. Well, as far as the illegal construction of houses and apartment complexes on the hillsides of the Northern Range is concerned, the minister and his Government might just as well keep on considering. The fact is that over a long period of time they have done absolutely nothing about this problem, even as bulldozers denuded the hills of their holding vegetation and the consequent floods became more frequent and widespread, even along the East-West Corridor. Now we are faced with an irreversible fait accompli and the prospect of a return of the flooding demon every time it rains heavily. And the minister’s response to this is that his Government is now contemplating whether to include draconian measures in its planning policies.

To use two well known metaphors to describe this situation, the horse has already bolted, Mr Minister, and Humpty Dumpty has already fallen. This could not have happened in Singapore. But still, Mr Khan must be commended for his candour. At least we know that he and his Government have not been ignorant of the nature of the problem. Speaking after Tuesday’s opening of Berth Seven at Port-of-Spain, the minister said “the people who are culpable in this matter are the two hardest people to deal with in the society — the poor and the filthy rich.” The squatters claim they have no place to live while the rich, for whatever reasons, get permission to build massive mansions way up on the mountain slopes. “This has created a major problem,” Mr Khan confessed. “There are regulations in Town and Country that seek to debar people from this indiscriminate development, but people seem to be sidestepping the regulations.”

He then offered the solution: “We have to get serious with regards to that level of indiscipline. We are an up and down society.” When, Mr Khan, when will the Government get serious about that kind of destructive indiscipline? If building mansions high up on our hillsides is illegal, then the Government should have taken the necessary steps to halt any such development in the first place. If our society now happens to be an “up and down” one, we can only blame the inaction of those in authority for making it so. It is certainly no mystery that indiscipline has become an endemic trait among our people. We see it manifested in many areas, in our schools, in the way we drive, in our littering of the environment, in the use of water courses for dumping domestic waste, in the noise pollution of residential neighbourhoods, in our ready recourse to profanity and violence and, ultimately, in the high incidence of crime and HIV/AIDS in our country.

To a large extent, this level of indiscipline is the result of the failure of those in authority to take the necessary corrective action. That laissez faire attitude not only hinders the country’s development but is also a recipe for chaos. It is an unfortunate fact of human nature that indiscipline begets more indiscipline; like some malignant corrupting force it feeds upon itself. The Government may not be entirely responsible for dealing with indiscipline in our society, but it must certainly set the tone and example, especially where the law is being openly flouted, for example by illegal hillside developers. In this case, for the Government simply to declare it is “considering” draconian measures may now be regarded as so much gobbledygook.