To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?With the of­fi­cial swear­ing-in of the Prime Min­is­ter and her Cab­i­net this af­ter­noon, the five-year term of the new Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion gets un­der­way af­ter Mon­day's re­sound­ing vic­to­ry at the polls.

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gar­nered 29 seats in Par­lia­ment to the 12 won by the op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. The seat count from Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion gives the new gov­ern­ment a clear ma­jor­i­ty with which to im­ple­ment most as­pects of its leg­isla­tive agen­da. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship al­so has a re­sound­ing man­date to rule–hav­ing won the con­fi­dence of 432,026 vot­ers, ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary re­sults re­leased by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion. This con­sti­tutes 60 per cent of the 722,322 peo­ple who vot­ed on Mon­day, com­pared with the 39.5 per cent of vot­ers (285,354 peo­ple) who cast their bal­lots for the PNM. With 70 per cent of the seats in Par­lia­ment, 60 per cent of the pop­u­lar vote and sig­nif­i­cant good­will from the coun­try's main in­ter­est groups, there can be lit­tle doubt that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team have been grant­ed the au­thor­i­ty to re­fash­ion the na­tion as they see fit. What is grat­i­fy­ing is that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship has pledged to be guid­ed by the wish­es of the peo­ple in de­ter­min­ing the way for­ward.

Among the first pri­or­i­ties of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion should be to un­cov­er the truth in two ar­eas: Whether any state funds or re­sources were used in the con­struc­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial church at the Heights of Gua­napo and whether for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott, Calder Hart, and oth­er of­fi­cials of the state-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny, have any crim­i­nal charges to an­swer with re­gard to the con­struc­tion of the Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­er in Port-of-Spain and the sta­di­um in Tarou­ba. Giv­en the state­ments made by Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the elec­tion cam­paign, the pub­lic is en­ti­tled to ex­pect that both of these mat­ters will be sub­ject­ed to full and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tion that these mat­ters will be sub­ject­ed to thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tions must be strength­ened by the fact that it was two mem­bers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple–one of the con­stituent mem­bers of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship–who un­cov­ered an al­leged fam­i­ly link be­tween a for­eign con­struc­tion com­pa­ny and a lo­cal of­fi­cial. The pub­lic is al­so en­ti­tled to ex­pect that these mat­ters will be brought to clo­sure with­out un­due hes­i­ta­tion and, if there is wrong­do­ing that the of­fend­ing par­ties will be called up­on to ac­count.

The new gov­ern­ment must demon­strate by its ac­tions, as op­posed to just its rhetoric, that it is pre­pared to do its ut­most to up­hold law and or­der and pro­mote the high­est stan­dards of good gov­er­nance and pro­bity, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to pub­lic funds and pub­lic re­sources. It is al­so im­por­tant that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion set a tone that is re­spect­ful of let­ting due process take its course. In oth­er words, there should be no witch-hunt of peo­ple sus­pect­ed or known to have al­le­giances to in­ter­ests or or­gan­i­sa­tions that do not co­in­cide with those of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. There have been in­stances in the past where gov­ern­ments have at­tempt­ed to politi­cise un­du­ly al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and this must be avoid­ed at all costs. The Gov­ern­ment must al­so move quick­ly to im­ple­ment all 91 of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry. The pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion spent time and mon­ey on a long and ex­pen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the pro­cure­ment prac­tices of state-owned spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­nies. The new ad­min­is­tra­tion must en­sure that this coun­try gets full val­ue for mon­ey by en­sur­ing that state con­struc­tion projects in fu­ture de­liv­er val­ue for mon­ey. Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar would have achieved a great deal if she can re­form the process of pub­lic pro­cure­ment while en­sur­ing that the ap­pro­pri­ate penal­ties are in place for those who fall short of the­s­tandard of be­hav­iour ex­pect­ed of pub­lic of­fi­cials.