PM's strange language

"What faces us now is temporary," he assured the party faithful, adding in his typically verbose phrasing, "and as plans that we have put in place and are implementing begin to take effect over time, you will see a reduction of the level of deviant behaviours to a level that is more acceptable to a society as ours."

In this speech we see at least part of the problem with the PNM government’s fight against crime. It is a fundamental unwillingness to face up to the harsh reality of a runaway crime situation. On what basis does Mr Manning assert that the crime situation is temporary? A look at the statistics between 1991 and 2001 does not support his contention.

The murder rate spiked in 1991 and then started to decline, reaching a low in 1999. In that year, it started to rise steeply, going from an average of 100 murders per year to over 200 in 2001. Now, in the fifth month of 2005, we are already at 136 murders for the year. Trinidad and Tobago at present has one of the highest murder rates in the world. So unless the Government does take serious action based on rigorous analysis, the situation is temporary only in the sense that the crime rate might rise or, at best, level off. Which brings us to Mr Manning’s reference to "plans" — a word that citizens are surely fed up of hearing from this Government in respect to fighting crime.

All the dramatically named plans tried under Howard Chin Lee failed to make a dent. Chin Lee’s successor, Martin Joseph, has had no more success with his various initiatives. And now Mr Manning makes reference to mysterious plans which the public knows nothing of. This is curious, since we would have thought that if the PNM regime had such a comprehensive and effective plan, they would have been only too eager to reassure a worried populace. Of course, it may be that Mr Manning wants to keep his cards close to his chest for security reasons, although we find it hard to conceive a good crime-fighting plan that would have to be kept entirely secret.

Indeed, it is rather odd, since Mr Manning is apparently so confident that crime will be reduced, that he has not himself taken up the mantle of National Security Minister. Apart from signalling his seriousness, his prophesied reduction would surely be a gold feather in his political cap. Indeed, we would have thought that, with Mr Manning’s surety that "deviant behaviours" will be reduced, he would have offered to resign if there were no improvement within a specific time period.

But, in his speech, Mr Manning took pains to avoid both specifics and a commitment of any sort. After all, the phrasing about reducing to "a level that is more acceptable to a society as ours" leaves the Prime Minister plenty wiggle room to define what level he considers acceptable. But we can assure him of two specific things right now: the majority of the populace is satisfied neither with the Government’s handling of crime nor Mr Manning’s hollow reassurances about its coming reduction.