I HAVE written the previous five columns primarily to engage those who have had a first-hand experience from a governmental as well as a representative perspective on the operation of the local government system and its problems.

They were also intended to engage the attention of those with a genuine interest in the subject at community level and to relate to the experience of constituents.

They were not intended for the acutely obtuse mind of Raymond Ramcharitar who sits with pompous sanctimoniousness on the sidelines spewing his interminable bile and derides everybody’s integrity as if he is some divinely appointed arbiter of integrity.

I have reiterated many times that local government reform, even in a minimal form, will not bring the desired results except the population, or a majority of it, buy into the idea. Writing in a column on 28/12/2003, I said: “… we have been nurtured to such an extent on centralised and autocratic decision-making that, even in a small country such as ours, governmental power to the average citizen seems distant, inaccessible and exclusive.

“This legacy has had a debilitating effect on the mentality of people who seem to think that they are impotent and devoid of power, that avenues for participation are limited or non-existent, that responsibility for their conditions of life is someone else’s obligation, not theirs, and their role in the governmental process is merely to exercise their franchise periodically.

“This pervasive inertia and irresponsibility so reflective of our political culture has to be addressed if local government reform has any chance of success.

People must want to participate and get involved. Without it, all proposals for reform are merely romantic speculation.” From 2003 to the present, interest in the subject appears to have declined as evidenced by the unprecedented low voter turnout in the 2016 local government election despite reform being touted as the major platform issue.

Much effort therefore involving new approaches and strategies has to be directed towards the education and motivation of the people to embrace those reforms. Merely passing legislation to satisfy a manifesto pledge which characterised local government reform as a major transformational issue will not suffice and will not induce the desired outcomes if the appropriate groundwork is not laid.

The series of public consultations on local government reform instituted by the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government was flawed from the very beginning in that it was planned and managed by a ministry of government and chaired by a minister instead of an independent non-government committee.

The impression given was that the Government was merely engaged in a public relations exercise.

The discussions were not structured to focus on the critical issues pertinent to reform, to seek elucidation on the underlying problems and deficiencies of the existing system and the kind of reforms required to address them and the expanded functions and responsibilities that may be considered desirable and their effective implementation.

I attended a couple of these consultations where the majority of contributions constituted a litany of personal grievances, thus serving as a kind of catharsis for participating constituents.

Related to the issue of the lack of interest by constituents in participating in the local government process is the inability to attract a higher calibre of candidates to serve as local government representatives.

Initiatives to be taken to encourage more qualified and competent people to become councillors is thus a challenge for the political parties as well as the respective communities.

To recap, other pre-conditions for successful reform outcomes include (1) independence of control from central government, (2) certainty of functions, powers and responsibilities, (3) adequate, equitable and t ime l y f u n d – ing, and (4) clear systems of financial and political accountability.

According to reports, the school girl told her teacher that sometime between September 1 and 30, 2016, she went to the Cedros home of her grandparents where her uncle fondled her.

The young girl said she had been afraid to confide in anyone but decided to come forward after seeing an advertisement on television about child abuse.

Upon hearing this, the girl’s teacher wasted no time in reporting the matter to the Cedros Police Station, following which yesterday the girl and her mother were interviewed by police officers of the Child Protection Unit.

Police investigators said yesterday that they intend to interview the suspect as early as tomorrow

“It will take me some time and get back into the groove. Things I used to do, somebody else is doing.

I feel my space was taken away.

That leadership role was taken away. My family had to adjust without me. They held the fort, but I am enjoying being the father again.” Petilal – the father of three sons – and three of his colleagues met on Saturday at a thanksgiving dinner with their families, close friends and associates including Head of the Islamic Front Umar Abdullah who took the lead to secure their release, at the El Socorro home of their local attorney Nafeesa Mohammed.

The immediate priority, Abdullah told Newsday yesterday, is to get the men reorganised with documentations and jobs.

“We also have to look at counseling for the families,” he said, noting that “One disturbing thing was that none of the state agencies gave any assistance to the affected families.” Meanwhile, Petilal told Newsday yesterday that while he was willing to share his experience with the public, he could not do so in full at this time because he will appeal the charge for which he and the others were imprisoned March 19, 2014 until their recent return.

Collectively they were allegedly robbed by the Venezuelan military of US$45,000 most of which, he said, did not belong to the five or their spouses who had travelled with them, passports that they claimed that were in their possession were not found on them, and they did not undergo weapons training in Venezuela.

“Our lawyers are waiting for the verdict, then they would appeal.

Everyone knows that we are innocent. The whole of Venezuela knows it. The authorities there knows it,” he said.

As far as he was concerned, he said, “We were kidnapped. It was political. They knew we did not go to assassinate anybody. The first thing they told us was that we went there as a group to assassinate President (Nicolas) Maduro. When they realised it was a big joke, they said, we were into money laundering, then human trafficking, and then terrorism.” When they realised they could not implicate them on terrorist charges, he said, they were asked to plead to charges of espionage.

None of the five, he said, pleaded to the charges as has been reported.

Nevertheless, he said, they were sentenced to the time they served in the prison, on the charges. It is this charge, he said, they intend to appeal once the judge who sentenced them writes up the verdict and makes it public.

He said it was only unfortunate that they were in Venezuela during a period of uprising and protesting.

“Senior officials made it clear to us that we were just caught up in the instability of the country at the time,” he said.

At the SE BIN jail (for political prisoners) where they were, Petilal said, “They called us ‘coins’ the equivalent of ‘pawns’.

Asked how he survived the imprisonment, he said, “Inshallah.

Prayers. It was the only hope we had. There were no promises.” On reflection, the imprisonment, he said, “was one of spiritual cleansing. The experience has made me a stronger person. I came closest to Allah.”

The road in Madamas was made virtually impassable by pedestrian and vehicular traffic due to the heavy rains and winds that wreaked havoc in the Matelot/ Toco area at the same time.

Since Thursday, Gooding said that the TPRC and the ministry have done a lot of work to make the road passable by foot.

While it was still impassable by vehicle, a backhoe which was in the area, he said, broke down yesterday morning and the ministry was yesterday in the process of sending another piece of equipment to continue the work today.

Empathising with the people on the situation affecting the farming community, Gooding is hoping, he said, that sometime today the farming community could be made accessible to vehicles.

He said that Madamas, which has nine families, who were all assessed and accounted for, was not the only area affected under the jurisdiction of the TPRC. The roads to Paria and Brasso Seco, he said, were also affected by the inclement weather and works had to be carried out in those areas to make them passable again.

He noted too that due to landslides a number of electricity poles fell. He said that workers of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (TTEC) have also been busy replacing poles and he expects that as soon as the road is cleared in Madamas, TTEC will resumed working there as well.

“Things are happening but maybe not at the pace that residents want. We are handicapped by the road, but the roads will be cleared,” he said. Meanwhile, Robert Aqui of Madamas told Newsday yesterday that people were still marooned in their home and could not get fresh meat and food supplies. Perishables either spoiled or they had to eat out everything because there was no electricity since last Tuesday, he said.

“It appears that we are the lost souls of Trinidad,” he said.

One resident, Lawrence James, he said, lost his home after water and mud went into his house.

Another house is perched on hill looking like a statue, he said, in a perilous state.

Although Gooding said they were working in the area, Aqui said, “We have not seen any representative.

We never get any help.” He recalled making a claim for damage to his crops over two years ago and not even getting a feed back. “Whether we vote or not, it makes no difference,” he said.

People in Madamas, he said, are estate people. We produce food – cocoa, coffee, crystophine, plantains, bananas, tomatoes, sweet and hot pepper and other crops.

We feed the people,” he said.

Aqui said he lives at a mile and a half along the road, where he can now move about by foot, but he does not know the state of affairs of the people living at three and four miles along the road.

Secretary of the steel orchestra Havilanna Davidson told Newsday that it has partnered with the El Dorado East Lions Club which also gave substantial contributions.

Yesterday members of the club dropped off several bags of rice, peas and other supplies at Desperadoes headquarters on Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain.

Since the drive began a few weeks ago, Davidson said that Desperadoes has been making its own contributions and members of the public have begun donating.

Donations include canned foods, water, toiletries, baby stuff, and clothing mainly for women and children.

The response for help for Haiti, she said, has been overwhelming.

They are partnering with an organisation in Haiti to distribute the supplies to areas that are most in need. The disaster-prone country was hit by Hurricane Matthew in October, after it was trying to recover from the 2010 massive earthquake that killed over 250,000 and left hundreds of thousands, homeless.

As soon as the supplies have been sent off, Davidson said, Desperadoes will be turning its attention to get relief for the people in Matelot and other affected areas.

In the meantime, she said, that members were interested in assisting in the clean up and recovery of the area.

The idea to provide humanitarian assistance was put forward by the Desperadoes manager, Curtis Edwards, who was in Miami when Matthew was barreling its way through the Caribbean and up the east coast of the United States.

The national population simply does not appear to think that local government elections are as important as general elections and simply refuse to vote.

Ironically, it is the local government representative that can have the most direct impact on the lives of the citizenry with simple things as garbage collection etc. As such it is now critically important for all political parties to put their collective minds to address this voter apathy and to attempt to get the magic formula to energise them.

Sadly, in this election this formula remains undiscovered by both of the major parties, the United National Congress (UNC ) and the People’s National Movement (PNM). Both sides claimed victory following last week’s election, but it is clear the population lost with the pathetic turnout.

With predictable low voter turnout its remains only to the party faithful to respond to the battle cry, which they did in record low numbers.

Mobilisation of these people is key to electoral victory in local government elections. Historically, the myth has always been that the PNM has the most organised electoral machinery, while the UNC has always been accused of not investing in institutions and the planning process.

This year’s election, if you ask most people, will be defined in one word — “roti”. The badgering of the Prime Minister during the time allocated for Prime Minister’s Question Time by MP Barry Padarath elevated the murmuring about the alleged cost of functions by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration to a deafening crescendo.

This provided the opening for the well-ridden and emotive electoral template of race politics to emerge as a major discussion point as it angered both sides of the racial divide.

To their respective credit, both major political parties attempted to discuss serious issues on their platforms.

The PNM had as its major plank reform of the local government system while the UNC was asking the population to use the election as a referendum on the year-old Government, especially on the issues of crime and the economy.

Ironically, these issues in general have little or no relevance to local government elections. For example, the PNM plank of reform of the local government system is an issue that has to be debated in the House of Representatives and winning or losing will not affect its passage.

The most it can be said is that the issue of local government reform as presented by the PNM appeared to be met with the approval of the electorate that bothered to come out.

The minor parties of the Movement for Social Justice and the National Solidarity Assembly had serious discussions on a variety of issues that just struggled to make news. The launch of a local government manifesto by the UNC sadly did not add to the political conversation.

Unfortunately, these issues were just not sexy enough it seems.

The PNM on the other hand did not even bother to launch a manifesto.

The relevance of printed paper manifestos and other aspects of traditional elections in an age of social media is changing with changing perceptions of the populace.

Is it that the collective media, knowing that the population would not get worked up about serious issues, focused on bacchanal instead? Or is that the population is only responding to bacchanal and forced the media to cover what animates voters? Local government as a product does not meet the expectations of its target market and as such the targeted people do not respond to the sales pitch and just do not buy the product. The significance of local government and its consequential impact on the lives of nationals do not exist in the minds of most, or at least not enough to get them to go out and vote. The political parties were selling a product that no one apparently wanted to purchase.

Of course the easiest scapegoat for this high level of voter apathy is the politician. But is it really? How is that voters come out in droves for a general election yet trickle out for the local government election? Is it that the population only views the high stakes of national governance as worthy of responding to? After all, the annual national Budget is now over $50 billion, compared to the paltry sum allocated to the local government bodies.

In many instances the Member of Parliament competes with the councillor for work done in a particular area, thereby further blurring the lines of relevance of the local government representatives.

It would have been expected that with the proliferation of social media, allowing the population to be connected almost instantaneously on everything local, there would have been a greater interest in the local government election. The major political parties have failed to use social media in a strategic manner and instead allowed it to develop in a free-fall organic manner.

The political parties no doubt have been trying to excite the population about local government elections using the tried and tested methods. The product being sold to the voting public does not appear to be connecting. The message is just not resulting in a call to action. This is not only true for this year but for previous elections.

Unfortunately, the political parties appear to be unconcerned about the low voter turnout and at least unimaginative enough to attempt to remedy it. If you had a business and your product is barely selling and you are just getting by, would you not at least try to change the manner in which you do business to attract more customers? The relevance of local government in a modern political context has to be critically examined. Reform of an irrelevant local government mechanism will not improve its relevance. Some have advanced the concept that in small-island nations such as ours, perhaps an expanded House of Representatives will be more meaningful.

An analysis of local government initiatives from independence to the present will demonstrate clearly that significant reforms in terms of satisfying the provision of basic amenities have not taken place in the past.

We were told, based on the 1990 local government reform, that our local government bodies were going to function as corporate entities and a businesslike approach was going to predominate in the delivery of local service. But alas the anticipated frame-breaking changes to local government operation did not materialise and, as the French proverb says, “the more things change the more they stay the same”.

The truth is if a local citizen had emigrated before 1990 and returned today and visited municipal corporations for local services, they would not see any major improvement in their operations. The fundamental defects of local government bodies are still very obvious today. The name change from county council to corporation did not bring efficiency, effectiveness and accountability.

I live in a developed area of our country and many times I have to patch potholes in front of my home with cement because it takes months for the corporation to do it. There is an abandoned lot at the side of my home and I have to cut the grass on it or pay for it to be cut because it is a health hazard. The corporation just does not have the resources to respond promptly.

The local government system is not provided with the necessary support to actualise the expectations of the last reform. Many explanations have been offered to as why so little was achieved with the 1990 reform, the common ones being lack of political will and administrative support.

So today our corporations are required to discharge a number of functions which ware enumerated in the Municipal Corporation Act No 21, 1990. But they cannot deliver them to the population. The reasons for poor delivery relate to some problems which have been existing since the county council era and include: Inadequate number of appropriate staff; unavailability of basic necessary equipment; lack of real control over their personnel; lack of respect from central government agencies; unavailability of lucrative local taxes to generate much needed revenue; lack of clearly demarcated roles between central and local government; low-level functions; no constitutional safeguards; antiquated management practices; inadequate technological support.

Clearly, the negative multiple effects of the above have caused a number of people to question the relevance of local government in Trinidad and have contributed to people visiting central government agencies for assistance on matters that really are within the remit of local government.

Predicated on the above, I am saying by all means give our local government executive power but let us ensure that it is an executive power that is real and far-reaching and not one that is symbolic.

For this executive power to impact positively, our corporation must have resources and operational power to deliver its mandate. These include: A guaranteed quota of funding based on parameters including demographics, physical condition, development classification and size of municipality; control of its personnel; provision of lucrative taxes; a fixed demarcation of local and central functions; respect by central government agencies (eg corporations are embarrassed by suddenly seeing a “no entry” sign on its roads or employees from other ministries working on its infrastructure without any discussion); enhanced functions (once provided with appropriate resources, corporations would be capable of managing more than cemeteries, markets, roads, and recreation grounds).

In summary, by all means give the corporation executive power but that power must be not only de jure, but it must be de facto and supported by accompanying resources to make it meaningful. Let us learn from the mistakes of previous reforms. Let us ensure the politics and administrative wills are there to make this new reform initiative sustainable enough to ensure effective and efficient delivery of local government services in Trinidad.

Our Prime Minister must ensure that the local government team entrusted with this initiative provides Trinidad with a local government system which is capable of delivering satisfactory services to burgesses.

The first set of gas is expected to be delivered in 2020 (some 100mmcf/d) and the full amount (some 500mmcf/d) at a later stage. NGC will be acting in the typical onshore mode — buy, markup, sell — only the source of the gas will be Venezuela.

This gas is urgent, is required now, since it appears that the Pt Lisas plants are experiencing a shortfall of some 20-30 percent in gas supply. The fact that the gas does not originate in TT means the Government will not receive any benefit as it did from TT ’s gas, from royalties and production sharing contracts.

It is still to be divulged what the cost of the gas will be to NGC and whether the price to the Pt Lisas investors is still considered “cheap”, the reason why these investors are here in the first place. The Prime Minster says the details will be released after the signing — after the deal is done.

Though the medium to long-term solution is the diversification of the economy, economic development as distinct from economic growth (GDP growth), in the interim we have to do whatever it takes, even if this means maintaining the plantation after the reason for its initial existence is evaporating — local and cheap gas.

It should now be very clear that the exploitation of natural gas via petrochemicals, steel and now LNG was part of the plantation economy and not economic development — a point made long ago by the University of the West Indies’ Dennis Pantin.

We have learnt nothing, we have created nothing (innovating in technology) and hence we cannot move easily into other energy industries that do not depend directly on the availability locally of natural resources from which we now earn rents. Moreso, outside of the energy sector, we have earned patents in energy efficiency, but there is no development system, no innovation system, to even exploit this knowledge.

In the same vein we can all share in the glee of the Minister of Finance that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to cut its production of oil, and prices may again rise.

Let the good times flow!

MARY K KING St Augustine

I am from La Brea and had an invitation to overnight at my deceased grandparents’ apartment and, to tell the truth, it was the worst weekend of my life.

The Environmental Management Authority needs to step in to close down the bar in the area that is making life intolerable, day and night, from 6 am to 2.30 am, for residents.

Shame on the owners of the bar.

As to the patrons, what a pity they give that owner all their hard-earned cash.

Shame on them too.

To the owner I say, be reasonable and lower your music man. Let the residents see the real man you are.

I wonder if Radica have anything to cover ears?

HELEN DUMAS La Brea

They can be accessed for free on a walk-in basis at any one of 33 health clinics nationwide on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

While news of eight flu-deaths last year had prompted a rush of persons to get vaccinated, the Minister urged that this year people seek out vaccines now rather than wait on him to deliver dire news of flu deaths.

He said previously the Ministry had only issued 6,000 doses per year, but now he wants deaths to be as few as possible.

The old, the infant, and those with obesity or diabetes – have weak immune systems and so are particularly vulnerable to viral strains such as H1N1 and flu.

Otherwise Deyalsingh said some 463 pregnant women have the Zika virus, on the heels of the news of a second baby born with the Zika-linked condition of microcephaly, marked by an unusually small heads size and lifelong learning difficulties.

He said testing is no longer done on the general population but only pregnant women.

Pressed as to the anxiety of such mothers- to-be, he said that the Mount Hope screening facility will be ramped up on a national basis.

Doctors are offering active counselling and the Ministries of Social Development and Community Development has special funding on offer. Told that anxious women might take matters into their own hands, Deyalsingh did not volunteer/ proffer any comments one way or the other on the controversial option of abortion.

He did not possess data to say what percentage of Zika-infected pregnant women would usually give birth to babies with microcephaly, but said the riskiest time to be bitten is the first trimester, with less risk in the last trimester.

Despite Zika now existing in 70 countries, knowledge is slowly coming in. The best strategy is eradication of mosquito breeding-sites, noting that a hefty $3,500 fine under updated Yellow Fever Regulations brings a 90 percent compliance by residents within one week of a specific warning by public health inspectors.