A pretty penny

Those of us, who don’t share his skewed vision of a so called developed Port-of-Spain, have not a scintilla of doubt. We know with certitude that by spending the billions of OUR money that he’s spending and going to spend on towers and on complexes and on any edifice in the capital that tickles his profligate fancy, our Prime Minister is being absolutely reckless with our present and our future.

We are in no doubt because we see the country falling apart and down and know it is more than inopportune for Patrick Manning to be wasting OUR dollars just so he can stand on his stolen Red House balcony, survey his capital city overshadowed by massive cranes, pat himself on the back and remark, "We reach!"

We reach. Where have we reached exactly? Have "we" reached far enough for Mr Manning to check into the General Hospital in the same crane controlled Port-of-Spain and put his heart in the hands of the local public health care system? Let him go nah, as they say, go and see if in PoS they have the facilities he saw in Cuba, if he’ll get that attention and medication he received in Fidel-land. Then perhaps he’ll start to question why he didn’t spot enormous gr?as-cranes — as he was driven through Havana, or he’ll ask whether Castro would spend billions on buildings or on Cubans and finally, perhaps, he’ll grasp that the real cost of a shiny new capital is people.

Late last year, someone I know died unnecessarily of kidney disease at the Port of Spain General Hospital. I say she died unnecessarily because to my knowledge, she would be alive today if only she’d had access to dialysis. She passed away because she couldn’t afford to fly to Cuba or go to one of the many private health care facilities which are doing a thriving business because they are offering precisely the attention we should be receiving in the public hospitals. How does the Prime Minister justify his stadium and his city of cranes to the family of this woman and to the rest of his citizens who are suffering or dying for lack of money to send their sons or daughters to private hospitals or to Havana or to wherever for treatment?

Will he dare ask these people for their vote in 2007?

Of late I hear many Trinbagonians worrying aloud about Mr Manning’s spending spree, asking questions such as, "But what about staff and facilities for the judiciary and what about fixing police stations and schools and roads and drains and what about investing more money in education, in getting rid of the SEA, in stemming crime, in real development?

What about throwing some of those boom dollars at the agricultural sector? What about making trips to the supermarket less traumatic for the average citizen?

What about the rising cost of construction? What about? What about?" Many of Mr Manning’s "Thomases" are concerned that when this boom is over, Trinidad and Tobago will have little to show for its oil and natural gas except shiny glass towers, a large stadium and a port in Port-of-Spain. Most are anxious to know when the construction will stop and when the nation building will begin.

Let’s for one moment assume however, that those of us who the Prime Minister has dubbed "doubting Thomases" are indeed short-sighted, that we lack Mr Manning’s amazing 2020 vision.

Let’s say we stop asking annoying questions about cranes and concrete for a while and we close our eyes and try to imagine Mr Manning’s Port-of-Spain of spanking new buildings and minus the Plannings. If we have the least of imaginations and we are the least bit honest, we’ll confess that Mr Manning’s Port-of-Spain is a visual delight. But the problem is that we can’t go on dreaming forever. We have to open our eyes at some point and when we do, we’re not going to see solely the city’s skyscrapers, but the other countless eyesores down below. We’ll see young men lying dead in alleys in PNM strongholds, never-ending dependence on crime ridden state programmes like URP and a populace living in constant fear.

We’ll see unnecessary flooding and loss of property. We’re going to see the desperate families of the ill holding endless fund-raisers and knocking at the door of the Ministry of Health, begging for monetary assistance so they can send their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, abroad for surgery. We’ll see men and women dying because there are insufficient dialysis machines.

These are just some of the reasons why there’s simply no justifying the mad spending and I suspect they are the explanation for the Prime Minister’s constant prefacing of his announcements of new buildings with defensive remarks about doubting Thomases. It’s clear that Mr Manning understands well that he’s considered a spendthrift. He is fully aware that in the minds of many of the nation’s people, he’s just a self-dubbed visionary that’s costing them dear.

As for me, one of the Prime Minister’s Thomases, I’ll buy the development package the Prime Minister’s trying to sell when I see Patrick Manning go to the Port of Spain General Hospital for his heart care and not to a hospital in Cuba. That’s when I’ll step out into his Port of Spain of towering towers and cranes to buy a hat which I’ll tip to the Prime Minister as I remark, "But you know, Mr Manning, now we really reach!"

suz@itrini.com

Columnist’s note: I warned the people of Trinidad and Tobago that we would pay for our apathy over Mr Manning’s Red House takeover. After the Red House, there would be no stopping him, I prediected. Now he’s taking over President’s Grounds. We have only ourselves to blame.