The price of balisier cultivation

After months of watching it grow, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that the Government’s environmental programme, CEPEP, was contrived to cultivate only one crop, the Balisier. Clearing waterways and creating jobs were the lucky by-products of a project devised to achieve the party’s one 2020 agricultural vision — a Father of the Nation firmly rooted in the Red House. Such a harvest would be worth the $75 a day investment.

Why such a cynical verdict? Because CEPEP seemed very, similar — despite the Prime Minister’s platitudes about fashioning entrepreneurs — to its acronymed predecessors, such as ETP and DEWD. I was suffering from patronage d?j? vu. Furthermore, though CEPEP workers kept the drains clean and earned a welcome weekly wage, the programme, as far as I could tell, was providing them with no marketable skills. Indeed, no environmental experts seemed to be guiding the contractors and labourers, teaching these what and what not, to uproot. The facile conclusion: they would all remain indebted to the PNM and as such, obliged to become specialists in only one horticultural endeavour, ensuring the Balisier flower flourished.

Remember how the ETP was used by the United National Congress to pad its meetings, campaign for its MPs? Reports were you had to possess a party card to get a ten days and not even that was enough at times, if you were not of the URP foreman’s family. Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday’s concept of this country’s millennium development was clinging to power until 2015. By almost any means necessary. One of these was using the indigent. Laventille dons like the recently deceased Mark Guerra rose to wealth and influence before 2002. The gang violence in the Port of Spain hills spiralled in late 2000 under the UNC. Back then the former Government dismissed criticisms of the criminal element in the ETP/URP because it needed to widen its support base. Were it handed the reins of power again, the UNC would employ the very type of programme to increase its hold on voters, just call it something else. And, a CEPEP by any other name is still a CEPEP.

If you think I am being unfair, ask yourself for whom these young men and women working the CEPEP gangs will cast their ballot in the upcoming local election.  You do not have to be a clairvoyant to predict that dependence on the Balisier for survival makes a vote for the People’s National Movement an imperative. Not just the environment will be at stake if their party is not victorious. A perusal of the list of people to whom CEPEP contracts have been awarded is further proof of the PNM’s pastoral project. The lucky recipients were, in the majority, loyal members of the Balisier bunch. I would bet a month of Malcolm Jones’ wages — if I had them — that most hold party cards.

Does anyone truly believe that this Government (or any other) will ever put an end to the unhealthy dependence syndrome created by URP, CEPEP, etc? Or set up legitimate employment centres, run by professionals who are qualified to help the unemployed, get them trained, place them in permanent jobs? Patrick Manning will not, cannot, dare not. Because then, oh dear Lord, some of the CEPEP clan might seek greener pastures of their own where they can grow crops of their choosing. They would become independent, start scoffing at Government handouts and vote for whichever party they liked. Worse, they might cease calling the PM, “Father of the Nation.” He would be a pastor without his needy sheep.

If you think my theories far out, consider Government’s indifferent reaction to the police statement that CEPEP and its counterparts in patronage, URP and NHA are contributing to the violence in Laventille. It was a conclusion which was based on solid evidence. Just last Tuesday night, an NHA foreman was shot at Harpe Place, Observatory Street. Yet, the ruling party will not contemplate stopping the programmes, even temporarily. It will not attempt to verify if what the cops are saying is true. CEPEP will not only continue, but also expand, the Government has boasted. In other words, the blood can continue to spill into the bedrock of the PNM, as its people shoot each other over crumbs. The reply of line Minister for CEPEP, Rennie Dumas, when asked by a Newsday reporter about the police’s determination, shed more bad light on the PNM’s attitude. “I do not respond to the police,” was the Honourable Minister’s retort. “Lucky for you, Dumas!” one wanted to say. “Me, if they ask me a question, I generally, like all ordinary citizens, give them a reply.”

By answering the way he did, Dumas flicked aside not only the cops, but also the very people losing their lives in the hills; as if both were annoying flies, buzzing much too close to his drain cleaning programme. However, come June, his party would be asking the latter’s bereaved kin to stain their fingers as deep red as the blemish left by their dead family in the houses and streets of Laventille. As for the police, they were being asked to quell the CEPEP disputes even as Ministers declared they did not respond to cops.  Why? Because CEPEP could not be stopped. It would be political suicide. To suggest such a thing, earned you a rebuke from our leaders. You were accused of wanting people to remain in poverty, when you desired simply to see them out of the self-serving hands of their politicians. I certainly had no longing to see the jobless of Laventille forever out of work. I did however, want to see them independent. For, what was the use of being able to collect a paycheque when you might not live to cash it? And, that was what it was coming to with these quick fix unemployment relief programmes in some districts. Whether Dumas and the PNM chose to respond to police warnings or not.

Suzanne Mills is the Editor of the daily Newsday.