Own worst enemy

Government

Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s Administration is getting ready to host a big conference – the Fifth Summit of the Americas – but in doing appears to show a disregard for the plight of the ordinary man.

While documents from the Udecott Commission of Inquiry this week revealed that Manning apparently sleeps on sheets each worth $3,400, on a $26,000 bed and in a mansion paid for by $244 million by taxpayers, and while Ministers frolic on retreat at Salybia, Port-of-Spain residents face a clampdown on their living space.

On Thursday came news that the Summit organisers will turn the western half of the capital into a “red zone” from which all TT citizens – including the capital’s residents, workers and business owners – would be excluded unless they have a security pass.

Opposition Chief Whip Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj told Newsday that the red zone violated the Constitution by impeding citizens’ rights to free movement, assembly and association, and a private life, and he promised to say more on the matter tomorrow.

Further, in an apparent act of contempt for their own die hard supporters, the Government daily continued to build higher and higher what it has fancifully dubbed a “berm”, but what this column will now name its “Wall of Shame”.

The wall along the Priority Bus Route will virtually block off the Beetham Estate from the sight and sound of the dignitaries travelling to the Summit, to discuss, ironically, poverty-alleviation!

Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Mariano Browne, at a news conference at the Diplomatic Centre on Wednesday night dutifully denied any link between the wall and the Summit, saying that the work now being done so feverishly is simply an acceleration of the wall because it had long been behind schedule. Yeah, right.

On top of all this, Mr Manning at the same news briefing, refused to divulge the cost of the Summit, reminiscent of the repeated refusal of the Government to tell the Opposition in Parliament of the ever-rising cost of the PM’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre, even as we now learn that the price-tag had risen from $40 million to $148 million to a latest price of $244 million.

National Budget documents show that the allocation to host both the Summit of the Americas in April and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in November is $503 million (subsequently revised to $630M). However, no division of the cost between both events was given, and fears are that the sum may rise over time, especially since extra items may be added on such as the cost of luxury VIP cars.

Is anyone keeping in mind that the oil price is still persistently hovering in the doldrums of around US$40 per barrel?

In defence of the event, Summit communications coordinator Felipe Noguera claimed that Canada had earned about $130 million Can (TT$611 million) in economic spinoffs from hosting the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec in 2001, but whether any such benefit would accrue to Trinidad and Tobago, particularly in this time of global recession, remains to be seen.

Opposition

Meanwhile this week’s headlines featured an Opposition too divided – and largely absent from Parliament this week – to keep the Government under check.

UNC deputy leader Jack Warner, following the UNC Youth Congress last weekend calling for the expulsion of himself and Tabaquite MP Ramesh Maharaj, announced he was no longer going to finance the UNC unless it reformed itself.

There were reports that the duo might consider resigning from the UNC and face a general election as independent candidates, but they both scotched those claims.

Maharaj said resignation was merely one of many different suggestions that had been put to him by supporters as a possibility.

Warner denied the claims, declaring, “The question does not arise.”

But whether they were inside or outside of the UNC, the Opposition was too divided to serve the public by keeping the spendthrift Government in check.

Contagion from the global recession began to hit home in TT as the Public Services Association (PSA) claimed 2,175 public servants are being laid off, in one Ministry alone – the Ministry of Finance’s Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise Division.

Underlying this, the week saw more global gloom economically with the US stock market falling to a 12-year low, while US unemployment hit a 25-year high with 651,000 new jobless reported for February. Likewise in the UK the Bank of England set its lowest ever interest rate in its 300 year history of just 0.5 percent and got the nod to print 75 billion pounds sterling in banknotes to inject into the British economy, all in a desperate bid to try to stimulate business activity to fight the recession. Does any local politician dare tell us that TT is immune from all of that?

In a call for greater financial responsibility from the Government, Opposition Senator Wade Mark and Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh did criticise the cost of the PM’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre.

On Tuesday in the Senate, Mark complained that $244 million was spent on the PM’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre, while poor people can’t get medical care at public hospitals.

Mark said: “Talking about belt-tightening, I would like the Minister of Finance to make a statement to this Parliament to let us know how drapes could cost the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic Centre $3 million. I don’t know what door you could have in your house that costs $47,000?”

“We will take them to hospitals that are inadequately manned, that do not have the necessary equipment and machinery and personnel to provide the proper healthcare for our people, while you have in the residence of a Prime Minister a door costing what? $47,000!”

“I want an explanation from the Minister of Finance and I want the Minister of Finance to tell this country how a building that was initially estimated at $148 million, ended up at $244 million, and poor people are dying because of lack of medical attention.”

Gopeesingh, in the House of Representatives, lamented the Government’s failure to build the Point Fortin Hospital promised since 2001. “Eight years, and you can’t build a hospital for the people of south-western Trinidad, but you could build a $248 million mansion for the Prime Minister and his family. Three thousand dollars for a bed-sheet!”

Media

Even certain radio and television stations found themselves with egg on their faces after broadcasting bogus reports that a shipping-container filled with children had been discovered at the Port-of-Spain Docks. This incident may or may not prove to be very significant in the role of the media and its evolving relationship to the political process.

It fell to CNN political director and vice-president, Sam Feist, lecturing to UWI students to urge media houses to fully check out such rumours before reporting. He said: “Don’t report information that you don’t know to be true. Journalists hold a very special position in any democracy. It is important to have standards, ask tough questions and have reliable sources.”