Much more was disclosed at last week's prime ministerial news conference than was actually said. It was in Mr Manning's dogged refusal to answer questions that the questions were actually answered. First off it appears that Mr Manning carelessly underestimated the calibre of journalists who would be deployed for this mission. Very quickly his typically calm demeanour threw off the cloak of pretension and flailed at the podium in a contemptuous display of derision and denial. In fairness to the Prime Minister, the reporters in the sparsely populated room appeared far more prepared than is normal, on many occasions looking down at their notes to build a chronological assault that the Prime Minister seemed hard-pressed to counter.
Mr Manning summarily shot down reporters' parallel of the Franklin Khan and Eric Williams bribery allegations, laughing off the comparison as weak at best. This of course is foolishness refined, for I could not think of a better reference point. Franklin "Smiley" Khan was and still is considered a campaign manager of considerable prowess. Eric Williams was revered as a loyal subject and top performing member of Parliament for Port-of-Spain East. Both men were ruined by the allegations of one man who charged bribery on both their accounts for, in the current context, a more than merely paltry sum. Additionally, there were serious problems with the veracity of this sordid tale. Both men resigned to defend their honour in the courts, something which their fearless leader seemed not troubled to do, accepting their resignations with resignation; comfortable with casting their fates to the gladiator's arena of public opinion.
The reputations of these men, in particular that of Eric Williams, were severely harmed by this smear campaign. It is human nature that we remember the charge but never the acquittal. Neither was reinstated nor was there any murmur from the party on these former sons cast from the bosom.
Conversely, Mr Manning was busy putting the finishing touches on an elaborate plinth upon which would stand a bronze replica of Calder Hart. At one time, with a frothy nudge, nudge, wink, wink to the clamouring critics, the Prime Minister offered Calder Hart as an ideal candidate for the failed Integrity Commission. Perhaps this air of invincibility our prime ministerial peacock appears stricken with is contagious. The executive chairman, on analysis of Dr Keith Rowley, displays a similar pathology of arrogance. We are also expected to believe that even as the Prime Minister stoutly defended the Teflon virtues of this Canadian transplant, there was already underway, for a full year, a secret inquiry into the troubling shenanigans and goings-on involving the government appointed construction tsar and Udecott.
For his tossing and turning at night over fears of bid rigging and other irregularities at this special purpose, all purpose company, Keith Rowley found himself at the other end of the schoolyard with the kids he used to bully. Yet the vindication he so keenly craves seems out of his grasp. When asked whether these developments exonerated Dr Rowley, Mr Manning delivered a cryptic, "Well we must wait until the evening to determine how splendid the day has been!" The very next day a seed is planted that would grow into a delightfully salacious tale of a former government minister's $40 million bank account in the Cayman Islands. The man, uncomfortable with the appellation "rottweiler," tore that inference apart with relative ease. Now the Prime Minister attempts to lead the population in the direction of the "construction mafia" who want to kill him. (What other way could those words have been interpreted?)
This was no revelation, of course, because anyone who has ever built a house in this country knows that bobol is the first block that goes into the foundation. At any rate if the Government was held to ransom by an iniquitous cabal of contractors bent on bilking the public purse, is it not the responsibility of the State to ensure that the proper oversight body governs the sector? On the face of it, it would ap-pear that Udecott, which was meant to do just that, became an institutionalised form of what the Prime Minister is demonising right now. Enter Colm Imbert with his own attempts at distraction, blaming a one-sided media for the Government's troubles. This good news argument is as old as racism and almost as insidious. The debate holds even less water than before, given Government's widening media influence, CNMG, Government Information Services, manipulated post-Cabinet news conferences, and NCC TV. Yes, the Government already has a conduit for its message in, at the very least, CNMG ($74 million worth of good news to be exact).
The Government resisted a commission of enquiry, then, even in capitulation, saddled it with such wide-ranging terms of reference as to confuse the outcome and drag out the process. For Udecott it was business as usual: more contracts, more development, more 2020, even as the enquiry trundled along. Now we learn that Udecott continued its great works during a serious investigation initiated by the Attorney General into a possible familial link between Calder Hart and Sunway Construction. The Prime Minister has declared war on the construction sector to accomplish God knows what. Yet in that 81-year-old man who stood with his arms crossed at the entrance to his home as the Prime Minister rudely pushed past him, this administration is justifiably petrified.
It matters not that Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar displayed a glaring lack of judgment and startling inexperience in her first major outing as the newly anointed of the disaffected masses. She lobbed duds easily deflected by the Government benches, even by a tearfully indignant Karen Tesheira. We have a history of voting people out. All the Opposition needs is the continued attrition achieved by scandal after scandal (something which presents no significant problem for this Govern- ment). Now as reports emerge of unthinkable flaws in the Performing Arts Academy, the din is deafening. Yet everything that I have outlined above all of us knew for several years, we were all warned. And there you go, it had to be spoon fed in the form of documentary evidence to the population by a political party that has been shadow boxing since the last elections.