Retreat! Retreat!

Patrick Manning and his massive cabinet took off for two long weekends in a row to: A) Secure their seats for the next election? B) Find ways to diffuse mounting criticism before the next election? C) Have a team-building exercise so Cabinet can serve you better? D) See if there is just one effective initiative to promote — before the next election? (In their absence from duty, the country suffered no more than when they were at their desks, and that is encouraging.)

You can choose any answer from the list, or you can think of your own. Cynic that I have become, I firmly believe the PNM was in forced retreat — and not from the UNC, and not even from us — the people. The PNM Cabinet is in retreat from its own bungling self. So please do not expect any action that will improve your lives to come out of these retreats. The retreats are essentially a public relations exercise called to find ways to improve the image of the PNM’s governance. Listen to some of the “gushing” attributed to ministers who joined the retreats: The ministers were taught “the meaning of life.” That is profound! Will they share this with us so we can know the meaning of life, and death — bearing in mind the murder rate? They shared camaraderie and bonding — they went as colleagues and returned as friends. Surely the UNC should try these retreats. In commending the consultant who conducted the retreats, and taught our ministers the meaning of life, one Minister pointed out that the consultant had been “used” in the Ministries of Senators Martin Joseph and Hazel Manning! How much comfort can we take from that assurance?

What we will get is a series of pontifical announcements, ladies and gentlemen, telling us of plans to be considered, studies to be commissioned and reports to be requested. There will be no action on any initiative that may come out of Palo Seco. And that is because the Cabinet, notwithstanding their return from Beach Camp, is still in retreat. And they, especially, know this. Unfortunately, they are not in strategic retreat — falling back according to some plan, to regroup and then move forward. Government is in disarray, with every single index — except foreign investment and GDP — falling. And that comparison alone — increased investment and GDP, but all our living standards failing — is a damnation of us and of our governments.

Every single day new stories of our ineptitude surface — a letter was written by two visiting Americans who claim to be surgeons about the conditions they saw at our flagship medical facility (Mount Hope Medical Complex). Have we no shame at all, that a new hospital can be allowed to deteriorate to the extent described? Then there were dead, rotting rats in the ceiling for days — in a hospital! They put deodoriser and pretended that the rats were not there? If that happened in any private office, the rats and the ceiling tiles would have been removed immediately. But at the hospital — the rats rot for days!

The police computer system for finger print identification broke down. It has apparently since been fixed. I had cause to visit Police Headquarters recently. The central air- conditioning had broken down. I met with senior police officers in a closed room with a small electric fan. Some of us criticise police officers. Last week I admired them for the fact that they were here at all, working under those conditions. Most of us would refuse.

The state of our roads, bridges and drains has groups of protestors out in the streets — all over the country. The “development” plans of Government — from the proposed smelters at Vessigny and Chatham, through the slum clearance in PoS, to the attempted seizure of the President’s Grounds in St Ann’s — are all subject to citizens’ protests. Improved health care, education, personal security and infrastructure are not development items for this Government. They see development as new skyscrapers in Port-of-Spain and mega industrial plants in the pristine countryside. They are not considering the needs or the wants of the citizens — even while the people are shouting “listen to us!”

So no wonder they had to retreat (twice) to Palo Seco. They needed to hide away in some sanctuary, to find ways, not to fix the state of the country, but to tell us about another set of plans and schemes to be considered. But as the Government goes retreating, before an advancing army of ills and incompetence they have created, the Opposition has not seen any need to step forward to fill the void. The UNC is also in retreat — although they have never formally announced this. The collapsing of the UNC, produced and directed by the UNC, is a startling concept — surely unique to Trinidad. How can a political party, serving in opposition to a government as inept as the PNM, self-destruct in the way the UNC has?

However, we should not complain. God is a Trini, and it appears that our prayers are being answered, and the devils are casting themselves out without the assistance of Benny Hinn. The forces of incompetence on one hand, and of corruption on the other, are retreating in disarray. And what remains, as these two groups fall apart in retreat? What remains is the rest of us, and a government waiting to be formed. The country is waiting for the quiet, competent, committed people who are still sitting on the sidelines to come forward and start to rebuild the country. That time has arrived. We do not need to “remove” either the PNM or the UNC from the scene. They, respectively, are doing that for us. The question is: when you are called, will you step forward, or will you, too, simply remain in retreat?