Ring the bell

The news last night featured yet another people’s protest, for water, in Trou Macaque, Laventille. Although it is the end of the Dry Season, the nation’s reservoirs are not depleted.

There is water in reserve, but not in your taps.

Someone called from Diego Martin while we were watching the protest from Trou Macaque — there was no electricity, and as far as she could see, Diego Martin was in darkness.

Before the news was finished, there was a major outage here in Cascade, so now we had no water and no electricity.

All this in a crumbling country — where “Water for All” has been a rallying cry to award meaningless contracts, designed more to fatten the bank accounts than to provide this essential commodity.

And while the people have no water, and no electricity, and — let me add — no security, no health care, no improvement in the horrendous traffic conditions, or in our faltering education system, the PNM can actually be bold enough to talk of a snap election!

And why not? In any other country, including our tiny impoverished Caribbean states, a sitting government would do anything to avoid an election under these conditions. But here, this sitting government can look to float back into office on a rising tide of corruption, gross incompetence, environmental degradation and sheer arrogance.

Political analysts from around the world should come here to study this unusual phenomenon.

The uninitiated might assume that we have some sort of charismatic leader who is fooling the masses into re-electing him.

But that is not the case here — Benny Hinn is just an occasional visitor.

In any case our PM has no appeal to anyone — just look at the regular street protests in his strongest constituencies.

Most of the people — from grass roots to boardrooms — consider him to be a buffoon.

He had to go Cuba, ladies and gentlemen, in order to save the country from the effects of a “UNC” doctor operating on him!

That statement is recorded in Hansard, ladies and gentlemen, and no psychiatrist — UNC or PNM — has called for discussion?

And the rest of his Cabinet is a bunch of bumbling, incompetent sheep.

Sorry, not all of them — there are a couple of real goats in there as well.

It was the Cabinet which sat and created, and then appointed a man who is before the courts to a senior position at NHA — where he “supervised” the awards and administration of millions of dollars in corrupt contracts, which led to the murders of hundreds of young men.

And I am not being cynical here folks — it was a Minister of Planning (no less) who, when he cut the ribbon to declare Ruby Tuesday open, announced that the opening of the American middle-class restaurant chain was “proof” that we are becoming “first world.”

See how low our government’s aspirations really are? But I digress.

Well, when Manning “rings his bell,” and calls on corporate Trinidad to fund the campaign, corporate Trinidad must know what they are funding.

You cannot complain about crime and still pour money into the re-election campaigns of the PNM and UNC.

You cannot complain about a lack of water in your home or factory and fund the people — the politicians, not WASA — who are responsible for this.

And if “there is no money in the budget” to support an Under-16 football tournament here in August, how will corporate Trinidad find the millions they pour into the election campaign?

Oh that’s different!

We have applications, and licences, and tax breaks before the government you see.

And if we do not make our political donations then, when the elections are over we will not get these perks granted.

Some people call it “cocoa in the sun,” some call it bribery. I call it business assistance in the ongoing sponsorship of crime.

But you Ring your Bell Patrick — the money will flow; the water will not.