Anguish in the city

OVER the years, motorists have resigned themselves to the gross inconvenience of traffic jams in the heart of the nation’s capital caused by the ceremonial opening of Parliament. Streets around the Red House, including the thoroughfare ones of St Vincent and Abercromby, are blocked off for security reasons and also to provide parking places for parliamentarians, officials and invited guests.  The location of the Red House and the gridiron pattern of Port-of-Spain’s streets make this annoying situation unavoidable.

On Monday, however, the inconvenience associated with this ritual was intensified into pure agony for motorists as traffic in the city came to a virtual standstill for hours. It now seems, in fact, that nothing in our country affecting a large section of the population could be so bad that it could not get worse. Compounding the pile-up problem on Monday was the commotion caused by the appearance of Muslimeen Leader Yasin Abu Bakr at the Magistrates’ Court on St Vincent Street, the occasion being the start of preliminary hearings into the charge of conspiracy to murder placed upon him. As expected, a large retinue of Bakr’s followers, members of the Mucurapo Jamaat, turned up at the Court to show support for their leader. Muslimeen regulars, dressed in black and red and calling themselves “Guardians of Islam” filled the upstairs corridor of the recently opened court house and the situation became so uncomfortable that the police had to call for back up forces. It seems to us quite unfortunate, indeed insensitive from both a traffic and security point of view,  that  these two crowding events, the opening of Parliament and the Bakr preliminary inquiry, should be taking place at the same time in downtown Port-of-Spain, a stone’s throw from each other. Who should be held responsible for this?

We can hardly blame Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls, who is hearing the Bakr matter since he had adjourned the hearing on August 29 to last Monday not having any idea that the Parliament would be reopening on the same day. The same situation applies to the Speaker who, when he prorogued the Parliament a few weeks ago, had no knowledge that the Bakr preliminary inquiry had been fixed for Monday 29.  If blame can be attributed to anybody for this clash of events, it seems that police officers in charge of operations must bear some responsibility since they were the only ones conscious of this simultaneous double event. Having to make security arrangements for both the opening and the inquiry at the same time should have alerted them to the problems inherent in this situation, both for security reasons and the horrors the concurrent double would cause for motorists traversing the city centre.  Apart from Bakr’s appearance, key prosecution witness Brent “Fatboy” Miller was also due to testify. In such a case, it would have been wise for them to inform the Chief Magistrate about the “clash” and to advise him to adjourn the Bakr matter to another date, informing the parties accordingly. How many productive man hours were lost, how many appointments cancelled, how many nerves were frayed, how much hypertension was aggravated by Monday’s traffic chaos we will never know. The sad thing is that public officials show little concern about the general anguish some of their decisions cause and a lack of interest in alleviating the distress as far as possible.