PM’s deafness

Mr Manning’s statement of certitude came after presentations by spokesmen for the National Energy Corporation; Petrotrin; E-Teck (which has responsibility for developing industry at Wallerfield); the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT); and, of course, Udecott, which is presiding over the construction of tall buildings in Port-of-Spain. Mr Manning himself boasted of the Government’s plans to build a mass transit system to connect Sangre Grande to Diego Martin and PoS to San Fernando.

The reasonable inference is that these are the criteria by which Mr Manning measures development: greater productivity in the energy sector; more industrial sites; a new rail and highway system; expansion of tertiary education; and the transformation of the capital city’s skyline to match that of First World cities. And, with the exception of the tall buildings, there is no arguing that all these initiatives are an important part of development.

They are not, however, the primary part of development — and this is the message that concerned citizens have been trying to get across to the PNM administration.

The construction of aluminium smelters in the country’s south-east peninsula is a case in point. Concerns have been expressed about pollution, environmental damage, and the consequent effects on people’s health and livelihoods. But both the Government and the private companies have responded inadequately, with deals apparently having already been struck without any public consultation.

Yet a main indicator of development is democratic practice — and, on this front, the Manning administration, far from having carried the nation forward, has been shown by the courts, including the Privy Council, to have transgressed the rules and regulations of good governance.

Mr Manning’s silence on the main matters of concern to the populace was also quite deafening. Not a word about crime or the rising cost of living. Indeed, the key events of the week made no impact on the Prime Minister’s speech: twin nine-month-old girls were being buried, the children of a mother who had gone to the United States to seek a better life; and the body of kidnap victim Christopher Taylor was identified, just a day after a 14-year-old girl had escaped her abductors; citizens had to take to the road to protest the fatal shooting by the Coast Guard of Charlieville fisherman Shazad Mohammed and the alleged police beating of Rabindra Choon of Oropouche; and Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams had warned of the need to increase the country’s productivity.

It therefore seems that Mr Manning’s vision of development is one which benefits mainly the better-off in society. Were his priorities different, then he would have been talking about initiatives to improve primary and secondary school education; to ensure better health care for the poor; to improve the systems in the magistrates’ courts; to develop agriculture; to develop arts and craft manufacture; and to prevent the State from trampling on citizens’ rights.

But none of these appears to be on the Government’s main agenda. Yet Mr Manning could still sincerely tell his audience, “I don’t think anybody in this room gets the job satisfaction I get from being associated with the development of TT.” Given the fundamental shortcomings of our society, however, we wonder if the Prime Minister understands the difference between job satisfaction and self-satisfaction.