Geisha Kow­lessar

One bil­lion dol­lars...and count­ing... That's how much mon­ey has been spent by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port since the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice one year ago. And Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er said much more mon­ey has to be shelled out. He said a large por­tion of the mon­ey was used to con­duct restora­tion road works and com­plete projects left aban­doned by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. "We have more than $1 bil­lion and we are spend­ing still be­cause the ne­glect be­yond the Ca­roni bridge bog­gles your mind. "There are roads in Oropouche, Cou­va South and Siparia which have not been paved for 30 years. "In a coun­try that had two oil booms, where high rise build­ings are still un­used, where the Tarou­ba Sta­di­um is still an em­bar­rass­ment, how do you jus­ti­fy all of that against the ne­glect of these ar­eas?" Warn­er asked. Warn­er, in an in­ter­view at his of­fice on Rich­mond Street in Port-of-Spain just be­fore he left for Zurich to re­spond to a Fi­fa com­mit­tee, al­so boast­ed that many of the projects were com­plet­ed in short­er time and at less cost than ini­tial­ly pro­posed by the PNM.

He iden­ti­fied the Mt Pleas­ant Bridge in Ari­ma which was com­plet­ed at a cost of $20 mil­lion as com­pared to the PNM's pro­posed cost of $35 mil­lion. "For 29 years that bridge has not been built. I com­plet­ed it in ten months," Warn­er added.

He said enor­mous sums of mon­ey were al­so saved from the com­ple­tion of the Aranguez over­pass and al­so the com­ple­tion of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way from Tumpuna Road in Ari­ma. "There were mounds and mounds of ag­gre­gate stand­ing idle for over six years. I was able to com­plete that un­der bud­get," Warn­er said. Say­ing he was ini­tial­ly ap­pre­hen­sive when he took over the min­istry, Warn­er said he had no idea what was in store. "I was tak­ing over from a man like Colm Im­bert and I did not know what to ex­pect. "I did not know what traps he may have set for me; I did not know what files would not be there; I did now know if files were some­where else. I was ap­pre­hen­sive," Warn­er said.

Bu­reau­cra­cy the biggest chal­lenge

In­suf­fi­cient fund­ing cou­pled with bu­reau­cra­cy con­tin­ued to be the biggest chal­lenge fac­ing the Works and Trans­port Min­istry. "I don't get enough fund­ing and when I get, it is not fast enough. Al­so too much bu­reau­cra­cy. Bu­reau­cra­cy in the gov­ern­ment is atro­cious. "Ju­ly last year Cab­i­net passed $21 mil­lion to put ca­ble bar­ri­ers on the Uri­ah But­ler and Solomon Ho­choy High­way and on­ly last week they be­gan to put it up. Al­most ten months af­ter, but in that pe­ri­od of de­lay over nine per­sons have died and those are the kinds of things I can't un­der­stand. Why it takes so long to get things done," Warn­er said. For the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship to sur­vive and suc­ceed it must be run as a busi­ness. "But on the con­trary, it is not be­ing run like a busi­ness, it is be­ing run like a wel­fare state. "Peo­ple have to be held ac­count­able for their ac­tion or in­ac­tion as the case may be but, as such, that does not hap­pen here. "And be­cause of that you lose the whole busi­ness eth­ic that is nec­es­sary for us to suc­ceed," Warn­er said. He added that T&T had in­her­it­ed the British sys­tem "whole­sale" to the "point where it could be ex­port­ed back to Britain." Asked how he would de­scribe his one year in of­fice Warn­er al­so said it was a chal­lenge.

"It is chal­leng­ing with my col­leagues, with the State boards, es­pe­cial­ly CAL."

Road restora­tion

Road paving and restora­tion, Warn­er said, were most­ly con­cen­trat­ed in ar­eas south of the Ca­roni bridge where ne­glect was ram­pant. Asked if he was fol­low­ing a man­date by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to pave roads in her con­stituen­cy, Warn­er ve­he­ment­ly de­nied this main­tain­ing that those ar­eas were in dire need of as­sis­tance. "The Prime Min­is­ter nev­er once asked me to pave any road any­where not even in her own con­stituen­cy. "Some­times, em­bar­rass­ing­ly I go there to pave a road and I say she is the prime min­is­ter, she is in the Siparia con­stituen­cy and how could I have that place in such a di­lap­i­dat­ed state? I must lead by ex­am­ple. I look at the ar­eas to be paved," Warn­er said. He said roads along the East/West cor­ri­dor "have been tak­en care of" over the years and were there­fore not at present top pri­or­i­ty. "La Brea was the first con­stituen­cy I be­gan to pave and the MP Mr Fitzger­ald Jef­frey gave me a Thank You card which I have framed. "I don't know any UNC or COP MP who over the years had any rea­son to give Mr Im­bert a Thank You card," Warn­er said. He said plans were al­so in the works to con­struct an over­pass in the vicin­i­ty of NP, Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain to ease traf­fic con­ges­tion.

Po­lice im­po­tent to fight cor­rup­tion at li­cens­ing

The cor­rup­tion at the li­cens­ing de­part­ment was so per­va­sive that a po­lice unit with­in the de­part­ment would have no ef­fect on weed­ing out crooked li­cens­ing of­fi­cers, Warn­er said. "The cor­rup­tion is so per­va­sive that putting a po­lice unit at the li­cens­ing of­fice at Wright­son Road would not solve it. "We would have to put a po­lice unit in every sin­gle one and even the of­fi­cers you put there you have to change them around ever so of­ten. And even then they may catch one or two of the of­fend­ers but the cor­rup­tion is so en­dem­ic it wouldn't be stopped," Warn­er said. He said the so­lu­tion would be to ac­quire mon­ey from the Gov­ern­ment to build the mo­tor ac­cess cen­tres which his min­istry was ready to con­struct. "In these ful­ly com­put­erised cen­tres you can go in there and in 15 min­utes get what­ev­er you want. "That is the an­swer. You may have to re­trench some peo­ple, pay them off ear­ly or to re­de­ploy oth­ers. But that is the an­swer," Warn­er in­sist­ed.

Sleep, a lux­u­ry

He's con­sid­ered a Jack-of-all-trades. Apart from wear­ing the hat of Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, Warn­er al­so fills in as so­cial work­er, friend and sav­iour of the poor and des­ti­tute. Hun­dreds lit­er­al­ly flock his Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy of­fice with the firm be­lief that he has the so­lu­tion to their woes. Sleep, there­fore, is a lux­u­ry for Warn­er and one that he can't af­ford. A day in the life of Warn­er be­gins at 4 am and nor­mal­ly ends around 3 the next morn­ing. When he gets in­to of­fice there are al­ready scores of peo­ple wait­ing to get a hear­ing on mat­ters that have noth­ing to do with his min­istry. "Since I can't af­ford sleep, I don't sleep. I work for 21, 22 hours a day and I am able to sur­vive on two hours' sleep. "I have been do­ing this for years so it's noth­ing new to me. Work for me comes as a ton­ic, as "coke." I'm ad­dict­ed to work and there­fore I get plea­sure in work­ing hard, work­ing long hours," Warn­er said. Warn­er said de­spite his de­mand­ing sched­ule he prop­er­ly man­ages his Con­ca­caf of­fice, his var­i­ous busi­ness­es, his min­istry, his con­stituen­cy of­fice and al­so serves as the UNC's chair­man.

Warn­er was rat­ed two weeks ago by polls as the most pop­u­lar and hard­work­ing Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter. But he shied away from rat­ing him­self, say­ing he had humbly ac­cept­ed the ac­co­lades. "But I am mind­ful of the fact that we live in a fick­le coun­try and the same peo­ple who would praise you in the morn­ing would cuss you in the evening and I would be very sil­ly to al­low that to go to my head," Warn­er said. He said he would not con­sid­er him­self to be "pow­er­ful" but rather in­flu­en­tial as with one phone call he eas­i­ly could as­sist some­one. "Very rarely I ask any­thing for me. I would pick up the phone and ask for help for oth­ers and give ad­vice where ad­vice is nec­es­sary," Warn­er said. Is be­ing prime min­is­ter in the cards for Jack Warn­er? "Nev­er. I don't have that as­pi­ra­tion and sec­ond­ly, I don't have the pa­tience to wait here long enough for that to hap­pen. Third­ly, my love for pol­i­tics does not run so deep."