Gail Alexan­der

She would not have been at home yes­ter­day for any tra­di­tion­al pre-light­ing-up ac­tiv­i­ties.How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a Hin­du, was hope­ful that she would have made it back to T&T last evening in time to see Di­vali deyas lit, fol­low­ing her trip to St Lu­cia, re­cent­ly hit by Hur­ri­cane Tomas.

The Di­vali hol­i­day was a work day for Per­sad-Bisses­sar, whose off days are be­com­ing even more few and far be­tween now.Yes­ter­day's St Lu­cia mis­sion came in the wake of cer­tain crit­i­cism which Gov­ern­ment has sus­tained on its han­dling of the re­gion­al cri­sis.

If Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ceived "stick" from some re­gion­al res­i­dents on her ini­tial com­ments, it was prob­a­bly be­cause the com­pas­sion which Per­sad-Bisses­sar buffed the PNM for lack­ing (dur­ing the 2011 bud­get de­bate) seemed miss­ing from her state­ments on re­gion­al aid post-Tomas.

(On Thurs­day she blamed the per­cep­tion of cold­ness on a "head­line.")But Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ini­tial hes­i­tan­cy on blank-cheque as­sis­tance could have been no sur­prise since she was main­tain­ing the mes­sage she trum­pet­ed to the re­gion at Ju­ly's Cari­com sum­mit in Ja­maica.

The fresh­man Prime Min­is­ter de­clared her new ad­min­is­tra­tion's po­si­tion: God­fa­ther days gone.Or in the words Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she bor­rowed from an aide: T&T is not an ATM card.

The re­ac­tion to her re­cent re­it­er­a­tion of the po­si­tion, how­ev­er, would have proven yet an­oth­er les­son for the new Gov­ern­ment on re­gion­al is­sues: that emer­gency sit­u­a­tions re­quire dif­fer­ent an­swers than stock re­spons­es from a coun­try such as T&T.

Whether it was the In­ter­net flack T&T re­ceived, re­gion­al threats to boy­cott lo­cal prod­ucts–or the spir­it of com­rade­ship among re­gion­al lead­ers at Wednes­day's fu­ner­al of the late Bar­ba­dos PM–the re­sult was a re­newed po­si­tion on as­sis­tance though brook­ing no com­pro­mise on the is­sue.

The "Help­ing Hands" project which Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced Thurs­day saves (some of) Gov­ern­ment's face in the cur­rent re­gion­al is­sue, es­tab­lish­ing a mech­a­nism to han­dle fu­ture sit­u­a­tions with­out tax­ing state re­sources.The ex­er­cise fa­cil­i­tat­ed by Tomas has ob­vi­ous­ly helped Gov­ern­ment un­der­stand the need for give and take–no pun in­tend­ed–to main­tain T&T's re­gion­al pro­file.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly, with eco­nom­ic hard times ahead when all mar­kets are cru­cial.In­deed, Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath last Tues­day ac­knowl­edged the econ­o­my is "flat"–a view sub­se­quent­ly echoed by UWI econ­o­mist Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir.Bharath said Gov­ern­ment is di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to oth­er ar­eas in­clud­ing agri­cul­ture. There­fore mar­kets–in­clud­ing re­gion­al–will all be on T&T's radar.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who's wit­nessed the down­fall of op­po­nents–in­clud­ing her for­mer par­ty leader Bas­deo Pan­day–has made a con­cert­ed ef­fort to dot her po­lit­i­cal "i's" and cross the "t's."

Her neo­phyte ad­min­is­tra­tion, still forg­ing its po­lit­i­cal iden­ti­ty, how­ev­er lacks the lux­u­ry and room for ul­tra-dras­tic po­si­tions. Or an ex­cess of mis­takes de­spite its land­slide vic­to­ry.

The PP would have no­ticed how quick­ly the po­lit­i­cal star of the much-tout­ed Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion for "change" in the US has fad­ed, mired in eco­nom­ic woes. Most no­tably this week when Oba­ma's De­moc­rats lost con­trol of the US Con­gress.

Lo­cal­ly, Gov­ern­ment is still grap­pling with an is­sue that holds the po­ten­tial to erode not on­ly its pop­u­lar­i­ty but al­so af­fect the lo­cal sys­tem if han­dled neg­a­tive­ly.Cab­i­net on Thurs­day sent back the Cli­co mat­ter to its Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee's next meet­ing on Mon­day com­ing to ob­tain a rec­om­men­da­tion af­ter last Mon­day's F&GP failed to make a rec­om­men­da­tion on sev­er­al pro­pos­als re­gard­ing the is­sue.

PP sources said some views still favoured the Dook­er­an bud­get plan on the is­sue, though un­pop­u­lar.Bal­anc­ing pro­posed pay­outs in that mat­ter–along with pub­lic ser­vants' own– in a "flat" econ­o­my, re­gion­al as­sis­tance may there­fore have to take the num­ber it's hand­ed by Gov­ern­ment and wait its turn.

PNM prob­lems pin­point­ed in par­ty re­port

Al­so ne­go­ti­at­ing rocky Op­po­si­tion straits, the re­cent storm is prob­a­bly not high on the PNM's list of favourite top­ics right now fol­low­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley's apol­o­gy on the is­sue.

The de­vel­op­ment has put the PNM on the back foot of sorts since it calls in­to ques­tion his judg­ment on the mat­ter.

Whether such is­sues–as judg­ment–were pin­point­ed in the re­port of the 15-mem­ber team de­liv­ered to Wednes­day's PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil, PN­Mites said oth­er mat­ters for at­ten­tion in the re­port in­clud­ed the need for more rapid re­sponse, a high­er pub­lic PNM pro­file, in­clu­sive­ness, and con­sol­i­da­tion at ground lev­el.

PNM of­fi­cials said the re­port "sub­stan­ti­at­ed in print what peo­ple have com­plained about." Row­ley's ad­mis­sion that the re­port was not "flat­ter­ing" to PNM's ad­min­is­tra­tion con­firms the need for work on all fronts.Whether (or not) PNM will in­deed start tack­ling cer­tain (long-stand­ing) prob­lems might be seen with next Fri­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion on the bail bill de­bate.

The pre­vi­ous week for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had in­di­cat­ed to the par­ty he would break his five-month si­lence in the House and lead off PNM de­bate while PNM chief whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald had al­so in­sist­ed she would lead off.But fears of a jos­tle among the MPs for speak­ing space in the House's pub­lic precincts did not ma­te­ri­alise since Gov­ern­ment con­clud­ed pro­ceed­ings that Fri­day with­out start­ing the bill.

It was slot­ted for de­bate on No­vem­ber 12 along­side leg­is­la­tion on the Chil­dren's Life Fund.While Mc­Don­ald did not get to speak on the bill, nor did Man­ning ei­ther, he still made good on his promise to break his si­lence in the House when he paid trib­ute to late Bar­ba­di­an PM David Thomp­son.

Fol­low­ing PNM's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus on Mon­day, par­ty of­fi­cials con­firmed Mc­Don­ald is "adamant" on her po­si­tion of lead­ing off PNM's re­ply on the bill next Fri­day.But hav­ing made his point–of break­ing his si­lence–whether Man­ning in­tends to pur­sue lead­ing off as well re­mains to be seen.Queries at his San Fer­nan­do East of­fice Thurs­day yield­ed no in­di­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, PNM sources said Man­ning will speak in the de­bate "and it will be no­ticed."They said the is­sue with Mc­Don­ald "...could have eas­i­ly been re­solved if egos weren't in­volved. As the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and leader, in that one in­stance where he wished to speak–and had con­sid­er­able in­for­ma­tion to do so–he could eas­i­ly have been ac­com­mo­dat­ed to lead off.

"It should not have been a sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple de­vel­oped is­sues or in­se­cu­ri­ties about it. The PNM is sup­posed to be a team now–more than than pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to make the PP look good," they added.