THE EDITOR: There is no doubt that TT offices overseas are intended to perform important services. Appropriately, the focus is on diplomatic alliances, trade, industry and commerce and tourism, among other things. However, adequate attention is not given to one of the country’s most valuable assets, its citizens abroad.

At the outset, let me say that my observations and opinions are in no way aspersions directed at the loyal staff who operate the foreign offices; after all, they do not make the rules. On the contrary, this critique is a challenge to the administration. It is impossible for me to fathom why, in this era of technological advancement, the TT Consul General’s office in New York City is still operating, in one particular aspect, as though it were in the horse-and-buggy age. Why does the Consul’s office not have a website in order to facilitate access to information on a 24-hour basis? It would not be acceptable to say that the government cannot afford it because websites can now be established very inexpensively. It would be equally unsatisfactory for those in authority to offer the defence, as they are wont to do, that “we are a small country.” As far as passport applications are concerned, the absence of a website perpetuates an antiquated system. The New York office serves an expansive geographic area, including other states, making it inconvenient to go to the office to pick up passport application forms. Consequently, a telephone call to the office will elicit the advice “write a letter requesting the form you need and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.” Then, frustration results after you specifically requested two forms, affixed the additional postage but receive one form only.

The procedure should be brought into this century without further delay by establishing a website, and by placing the forms and instructions in the system to be downloaded with an Adobe Acrobat Reader, or similar software which is free. It is irrelevant that they use forms with two or three-coloured copies. White copies appropriotely noted will be no less effective, therefore, any attempt to use that as an excuse would demonstrate an unwillingness to accommodate. This need for change should not result in promises and excuses ad nauseam. There is no free lunch. Obviously, the administration has statistics giving the approximate number of passports that are processed through the New York office annually. Therefore, once the cost of establishing and maintaining the website is known, it would be feasible to apportion some of the costs to the applicants as part of the fee. I am sure the increase will not be significant and people would be willing to pay for the convenience. Updating forms and instructions on the website will also be cost effective because when amendments are made it would not be necessary to reprint as great a number of forms as would normally be required. Of course, everyone does not have or use a computer. Therefore, those excepted individuals would continue with the present system. Eventually, they will be few and far between as more households go online.

Why accept the challenge to make things easier for nationals in foreign countries? Citizens residing abroad invest in TT’s future by maintaining houses and other properties; paying taxes, financially supporting families and relatives, and participating in business ventures. They stimulate exports and have a positive effect on the balance of payments by generating demand for TT goods, including a myriad of food products, soft drinks, condiments, canned juices and alcoholic beverages. They travel frequently and by using BWIA as their airline of choice, they help to sustain that carrier. While they are visiting, they spend hard currency which makes them analogous to the tourist. Is it not prudent to cater to them? I have confined my comments to New York City but I feel sure the same is true for other cities with large concentrations of Trinbagonians both in and out of the United States. Trinidad and Tobago should look for every reason to become more citizen and access-friendly, and should not try to defend the status quo. The country wants “developed nation status” and this would be a good step towards that goal. It’s time to follow good precedent.

SELWYN P NIMBLETT
Brooklyn, NY

THE EDITOR: We, the Vendors Association of Maracas Bay, are totally fed up with the condition we face in order to make a living to support our families. TIDCO has let Maracas become a disgrace. There are stray dogs that break into the dirty, smelly, broken garbage bins, scattering garbage everywhere and creating an eyesore. Dirty water pools after heavy rainfall causes flooding in the huts and by our booths.

There is now mud and an overgrowth of weeds near our booths which are unpleasant to us and to customers. Sand blows into the drains and the drains back up, causing even more flooding. For years we have had problems with the sewerage system and to this day it does not work properly. This is a health hazard for swimmers and how can TIDCO offer food in such an area? Our booths are an embarrassment — they are too small, we have poor electrical wiring, leaky roofs, broken windows and doors and improper water supply. We cannot afford to fix these things; we cannot even afford to pay our rent. Day after day for years it has been a struggle. Most of the time we have to throw away our flour, shark and vegetables because we do not get enough sales. While we are throwing away our goods, the vendors in the car park are making thousands of dollars a day selling approximately 1000 pounds of shark per week at an estimate re-marketable value of $15,000.

These vendors are then able to put up tents, tables and chairs which attract even more customers and can therefore offer a wide variety of salads and dressings because of constant sales in the car park. But our plight is not against those car park vendors, but against TIDCO itself. We do not understand why TIDCO would let money go down the drain by not helping us because at this point none of the vendors on the beach can pay their rents and that by itself is a substantial loss to TIDCO. We want TIDCO to help us, but we also want TIDCO to genuinely improve the beach. We feel they should erect more huts and sheds on the beach because people need more places to shelter from the hot sun and heavy rains. The need to have better garbage bins, and more of them, so that people will not litter the beach and dogs will not tear open the bags. They should catch stray dogs as well. All of these improvements, along with better shark and bake facilities, will make Maracas a better beach and bring in more tourists.

We also strongly feel that TIDCO should build another car park for two reasons:
(1) The vendors on the beach cannot compete with the successful vendors in the car park. There are five regular rent-paying vendors in the car park and eighteen vendors on the beach who cannot pay their rent. It is not fair that the majority of the vendors should be located so far away from parking facilities.
(2) Another car park would be very profitable for TIDCO as well. There are plenty people who park by the Maracas Hotel and also illegally on the sides of the road — creating serious traffic congestion on Sundays — who could pay to park in a proper car park on that side of the beach.

There are many people who only go to that side of the beach closer to the hotel. Why not create parking facilities for them? There is plenty room in front of the drop-off zone that would be suitable for a car park and we know this because for months now people have been driving right in through the drop-off zone and parking on the sand. If there was a second car park, TIDCO and the vendors would both benefit. We are trying very hard to prevent ourselves from being evicted and we are pleading with TIDCO to please consider this letter. We do not want to continue to protest but no one will listen to us. Maracas is the most popular beach in Trinidad because it is accessible and because of US — the shark and bake vendors. We deserve to have some input about these “renovations” TIDCO claims to be making. We do not want to be in this position. We want to be able to pay our rent and support our families. Some of us have been vendors for over 30 years. Ever since the car park was built everything has changed. We are desperate TIDCO, please help us.

VENDORS ASSOCIATION OF MARACAS BAY

The Editor: The arrest of a police corporal in Siparia who is allegedly connected to various levels of crime throughout TT is disturbing. We have been hearing about crooked cops in the police service for the longest while.

All hard working and concerned officers should take this as a cue and be willing to report crooked cops to senior officers, until the police service is cleaned up. They owe nothing less to their country and their profession! Part of the answer to solving the crime problem in TT is by instituting and emphasising what is called community-driven policing by contracting trained police officers from other countries and infusing them with the local police. This will instill purpose, efficacy and the overwhelming need to eradicate crime in TT which continues to increase despite the new broadside. The top brass in the police service should be looking for energetic and efficient police officers who have served their police divisions or precincts well in their respective countries and would be willing to be part of a well organised and efficient team to help combat crime in TT.

If Colm Imbert can take the bold steps to import medical doctors from Cuba then why can’t we do the same thing with the police service? The government has to develop a committee to assess contract policing in TT similar to what has been done in parts of Canada, the United States of America, Australia and other countries. Consequently, the government can seek to negotiate with other governments for the provision of police services not only on a contract basis, but to set up fresh autonomous police services in various divisions which local police are running at present. The tax- base within which these new autonomous divisions will lie (industry, business and tax-paying citizens) together with subventions from the government will pay for state-of-the-art equipment, vehicles, station-upkeep and proper salaries. And this should be run as an efficient business without political interference.

This is a necessary move because we are not benefitting from new ideas or new approaches in fighting crime locally. The police service continues to generate the same old malaise over and over and the country is not seeing any reduction in the crime level. Morale, discipline and conduct are low throughout the police service and “new blood” from the outside is what is needed — not new local recruits who are going to  fall in the same negative corrupt cycle that the police service has become! The PNM which seems to be devoid of new ideas, is fooling themselves and the citizens of TT with this developed country status by the year 2020 nonsense! Only Manning it seems, believes this. If they really want to fight crime, do as other countries have done in the past and are still doing presently- import police!

DR CHRIS MAHADEO
Port-of-Spain

THE EDITOR: No observation is more common and at the same time more true than that the best form of defence is to attack. Certain persons including Senator Wade Mark continue their apparent relentless attack on former Attorney General Ramesh L Maharaj SC and their baseless attacks are held up to engage our attention enlarged with tonnes of declamation in our media including your newspaper.

One such attack appears at page 21 of your August 16 publication in which Ramesh is once more blamed for Caroni’s closure by preventing the sale of the rum distillery to a local corporation. One must remember that the agreed sale price for the distillery was $30,000,000 which is $970,000,000 less than the rum distillery’s true worth. Indeed, former Chairman, Joe Ramkissoon is on record as saying that the rum distillery is really valued at one billion dollars over ten years with good management. Apparently, the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago cannot wait for ten years nor can one find good management in our part of the world, so we should suffer a loss of $970,000,000. Because of Ramesh this tragedy was avoided and for it he is not only blamed for Caroni’s closure but also that he has “joined forces with a Government bent on racial and political discrimination.”

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing such nasty bared attacks with fortitude. Men in such circumstances act bravely even if motivated by vanity. “But he who, in the vale of obscurity, can brave adversity; who without friends to encourage acquaintances to pity or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference is truly great; whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration and should be held up for our imitation and respect”. (Goldsmith).

GARNET MUNGALSINGH
San Fernando

THE EDITOR: Thank you for space to convey my regret at the turn of events that allowed a group of UWI theoreticians to obfuscate, dilute, hijack and gloss over The President’s original motivation for embarking on his race relations demarche that he announed to the Maha Sabha on May 29.

The Anglo-colonial plantocracy not only failed to treat with race relations but if anything it also fanned the flames of Indo-Afro separation (the divide and rule policy) by richly rewarding African urbanism at the expense of Indian rural neglect. For 41 years independent Trinba-gonians have stigmatised the concept of race. We have avoided and failed to face full frontal nudity as well as the strains and stresses of Afro-Indo relations in spite of our growth to maturity. We avoided calling a spade a spade and allowed ethnic polarisation to fester and grow in the interest of political supremacy. The President’s National Self-Discovery Committee (NSDC) should have signalled this fundamental departure from the past in its modus operandi. It should have announced its intention to address the issue of race relations frontally and unambiguously. Instead the Chairman of the Committee Senator Ramchand (Newsday Aug 13, p 12) committed a definitional faux pas by agreeing to sweep “race relations” below the carpet. He euphemistically substituted “national self-discovery” perhaps confusing race, an accepted sociological concept with racism. This self-discovery label is not only misleading but also unnecessarily meaningless and confusing to the average Trini.

Since 1956 the term “national” incubated in cosmopolitan TT a virulent strain of ethno-nationalism that contributed to and brought us to our current parlous state of ethnic bi-polarisation. “Multicultural,” if this were necessary, would have been more appropriate than “national” — a term that compromises the future recommendations of the Committee. Chairman Ramchand emphasised that the Committee was “… not a race Committee.” If in his own words the end product of its work is “… not to make African and Indian relations better” then pray Senator what are your Committee’s objectives? That was the genesis of His Excellency’s Maha Sabha intervention. Research into, understanding and dissemination of knowledge on ethnicity cannot be undertaken in vacuo. They must be premised and conditioned on achieving identifiable and relevant social objectives of expected group and individual behavioural outcomes and changes ie better race relations. This cannot happen by accident or be a spin-off effect as Ramchand indicated. We are therefore wasting time by emasculating and deflating the President’s original race initiative. We are going to generate unfulfilling hopes and undeliverable expectations on taking our cosmopolitanism to new frontiers of peaceful and harmonious cultural co-existence, cross fertilisation, fusion and interpersonal harmony and understanding.

In examining the prospectus for the conduct of the proposed ethno-social inquiry as outlined by Senator Ramchand, I asked myself in the face of a non-existent budget who will fund the much-needed PR/media practitioners, the sociologists, the social psychologists, the pollsters etc to allow this National Self Discovery Committee (NSDC) “to go below the surface” of racial conflict and tension and arrive at meaningful and usable data? With the membership of the NSDC fully engaged in fulfilling their demanding academic/political responsibilities and without the requisite supporting Secretariat facilities, how can it deliver anything of substance and meaning on its broad, convoluted and diffused mandate within an initial limited time frame of 12 months? How can the NSDC maintain its independence as the Chairman asserted, without an independent source of funding to project its message on ethnic knowledge and understanding to its multicultural audience via the print and electronic media? Will it rely on the goodwill of Gov’t’s PR machinery and the private media? This will be another talk-shop. Finally there is an indisputable correlation between ethnicity and geography in TT. Who speaks for rural TT heartland — the victims of widespread geographic/ethnic discrimination? Must UWI and the East-West corridor constituency continue to define and dominate the contours of our cosmopolitanism?

STEPHEN KANGAL
Caroni

THE EDITOR: The harmonious and peaceful nation, for which we have unremittingly toiled, seems to be degenerating into a wreckage with the passing of each day. Criminals are holding sway. No one is entirely immune from their attacks. Today it is a friend or associate, tomorrow you could become the victim. No one is safe. People are becoming prisoners in their own homes.

Our security forces, which have vowed to protect and serve, are doing their utmost to restore safety and maintain accord — but to little avail. The ominous cloud looming over the country is growing rapidly. We must not despair, but should place our hope in the Police and support them completely. They need our help. It is the inherent duty of every citizen to do as much as possible to save our nation from civil war. I respectfully and decisively propose that we look to history for some answers. We are a young nation and our historical past is relatively short. Coming to mind immediately is the hero of yesterday — the late Randolph Burroughs. We must endeavour to learn from his modus operandi and his techniques in controlling the lawbreakers. I have little notion of his style, but I am fully aware of his overwhelming success. He had very quickly mustered a gallant Flying Squad, upon which he depended very heavily. To a great extent, he placed implicit trust and confidence in his police informants and his dedicated subordinates.

Whenever a report was lodged with him about he movements of bandits, his method was to attack immediately. He generally went ahead, leaving orders for his colleagues to follow him. In other words, he led his men from the front — not from behind. These methods and practices were very effective and resulted in crime being “nipped in the bud.”  He was also primarily concerned with preventing the perpetrating of crimes before they needed to be solved. From limited knowledge regarding the relationship between Commissioner Burroughs and his loyal staff, it seemed as though trust and reliance were mutual qualities which ostensibly dictated their effective performance. History has been, to all nations, the guide and the wisdom in acquiring the solutions to desperate problems. We must also remember that a man in his efforts will be a failure unless he obtains the guidance and blessing of the Almighty. Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened.” Mr Burroughs has not told us how to do the job, but in many instances he has shown us the way to deal with culprits. May God bless our nation and deliver us from the clutches of kidnappers and may another hero be found.

SALER AMEERALI
Eleanore Street
Chaguanas