To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?Once again the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty ap­pears to be en­gag­ing in one of those dust-ups which bring all the reg­u­lar play­ers out on stage–min­is­ters, op­po­si­tion politi­cians, lawyers, gad­flies, let­ter writ­ers, ra­dio-callers, et al–emit­ting the reg­u­lar nois­es of ac­cu­sa­tion, de­nial, charges of racism and nepo­tism, calls for res­ig­na­tion, de­mands for in­quiries, state­ments in Par­lia­ment, in­ter­views, etcetera.

The cause of dis­com­fort this time is the mat­ter of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance giv­en to some 460 cit­i­zens by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the in­cum­bent min­is­ter had re­fused to dis­close de­tails un­til a re­cent threat of court ac­tion prompt­ed the Gov­ern­ment's re­lease of names and num­bers. While there is no doubt that the Gov­ern­ment means well, best prac­tice in the gov­er­nance of mod­ern de­mo­c­ra­t­ic states re­quires ad­min­is­tra­tions to strive for the high­est de­gree of trans­paren­cy. The Gov­ern­ment op­er­at­ed in this case as though it had some­thing to hide: first re­fus­ing to pro­vide the names of the re­cip­i­ents of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to the Par­lia­ment and then on­ly mak­ing the in­for­ma­tion pub­lic af­ter a group, pro­mot­ing the in­ter­ests of In­do-Trinida­di­ans, sued un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. In­stead of hold­ing the fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance up as the ac­tion of an ad­min­is­tra­tion seek­ing to im­prove the ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties of those most in need, the Gov­ern­ment held the fund­ing down, treat­ing it like some unloved out­side child.

The Gov­ern­ment has spent bil­lions in­creas­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, es­tab­lish­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and foot­ing the tu­ition fees for all those cit­i­zens wish­ing to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion. The cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion cuts a fair fig­ure when the spot­light lands on its ed­u­ca­tion poli­cies and per­for­mances: there is the im­pres­sive truth that be­tween the 2008 and 2010 fis­cal years, the Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $9.9 bil­lion to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, and $5.5 bil­lion to the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion. Giv­en the se­ri­alised wave of dis­clo­sures and re­spons­es, we now call for a more ma­ture ap­proach to the mat­ter in or­der to de­rive the fullest ed­uca­tive val­ue from the is­sues. Notwith­stand­ing the good in­ten­tions of self-ap­point­ed ac­tivists–though per­haps skewed by par­ti­san po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ings as the in­ves­ti­ga­tors and com­plainants ap­peared on par­ty plat­forms to make their case–there are now three ba­sic lessons the so­ci­ety may wish to take warn­ing of for the fu­ture.

One, that the scruti­ny of cit­i­zens in our com­mu­ni­ty ought to be wel­comed and in­deed en­cour­aged as healthy cit­i­zen-ac­tion meant to keep a gov­ern­ment on the straight and nar­row. It must be re­mem­bered, how­ev­er, that the bark­ing of a watch­dog if in­dulged in for every pass­er-by will even­tu­al­ly lead to a fed-up so­ci­ety ig­nor­ing the one time a true bur­glar ap­pears. Two, that a gov­ern­ment has the pow­er and priv­i­lege, in­deed the man­date as­signed by the elec­torate, to use its best judg­ment to man­age the af­fairs of the coun­try–de­vis­ing pro­grammes of as­sis­tance to the cit­i­zen­ry and dis­burs­ing funds in a re­spon­si­ble man­ner with­out hav­ing to dash out and con­sult the pub­lic on a minute-by-minute ba­sis. But a gov­ern­ment must bear in mind that a cit­i­zen­ry that is in­formed is a na­tion that can get in­volved. Peo­ple re­spond best when they are treat­ed with ap­pro­pri­ate re­spect, as chil­dren and adults.

Three, that all sides should find wis­dom in the bib­li­cal quo­ta­tion "the truth shall set you free" and set truth as their pur­suit as op­posed to the pro­tec­tion of en­trenched po­si­tions and the main­tain­ing of sta­tus quo. It may be that the Gov­ern­ment should be giv­en some cred­it–as op­posed to flip­pant cyn­i­cism–for pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to cit­i­zens in need, es­pe­cial­ly our young in pur­suit of out­fit­ting them­selves ed­u­ca­tion­al­ly, thus gear­ing up to make a con­tri­bu­tion to the ad­vance­ment of our coun­try. Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mac­Don­ald's ex­pla­na­tion in the House yes­ter­day gave a lit­tle more un­der­stand­ing of the as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed by her min­istry, and damped down the con­tro­ver­sy, con­trived or gen­uine. But we must ap­peal for, in­deed in­sist, that a more pro­fes­sion­al mech­a­nism has to be de­vised and de­ployed to share all as­pects of pub­lic ser­vice with the pub­lic. Af­ter all, the word "pub­lic" does come be­fore "ser­vice."