Speaking without thinking

Two recent statements, one from Minister of Trade Ken Valley, the other from UNC Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, are classic examples of speaking without thinking. First, Mr Valley. Speaking to reporters after a meeting at the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association on Tuesday, he was asked whether last weekend’s fire in Port-of-Spain would affect this country’s chances at becoming the headquarters of the FTAA. His reply was to glibly dismiss the fire as a “blip.” At a time of immense economic and human distress, when business people, many of them small vendors, have lost millions of dollars in property and stock; vendors at the destroyed People’s Mall their livelihood and hundreds of workers their jobs, Valley’s off the cuff comment was at least wholly insensitive and at worst totally irresponsible.

It gave the impression that the fire was no big thing despite the fact that the fire services were unable to contain it for hours. Valley creates the impression that his Government does not regard the fire which destroyed a substantial portion of downtown Port-of-Spain as of significant importance. Blip, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, means “a small image of object on radar screen.” Is that how Government views the damage done by the fire when compared to the larger picture with respect to its plans for the capital city and the country? What a callous comment! And where does Valley live that he was unaware that it was because of the indifference of the Government to the needs of the Fire Services Division and failure of the Ministry of Planning and Development’s Town and Country Planning Division to enforce the building codes that were responsible for the scale of the fire?

Had the building code been enforced the reckless construction and extensions of many of the structures in the People’s Mall, which contributed to the spread of the fire, would not have taken place. Additionally, had the Ministry of National Security paid heed to the need to replace 360 outdated and rotted fire hydrants, along with non-functional saltwater mains, Saturday’s major fire would have been readily contained. Next there was Opposition Leader, Mr Basdeo Panday’s contention that the widening crisis in the United National Congress was purely an internal Party matter that did not concern the national community. Is he for real? Were the decisions of two UNC members Gillian Lucky and Fuad Khan to break with Panday on the issue of morality and integrity also a “blip?”

We would not be surprised if more UNC MPs, along with members of the Party’s Executive, took issue with Panday’s “politics has a morality of its own” argument. Was the Political Leader of the country’s alternative ruling Party sending coded signals to the electorate of what to expect should the Party be returned to office? Does he not understand that few things are of more national concern than who forms the Government? Finally, does the public silence of some of the other UNC Members of Parliament with respect to Panday’s position on morality in politics mean either that they agreed with him or were afraid to challenge him? It does not say much for the Party that is seeking to regain control of Government in the next general election, constitutionally due in 2007.