This world is in­ter­con­nect­ed to the ex­tent that ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, with trust and cred­i­bil­i­ty as key com­po­nents, is es­sen­tial. That and gen­uine, trans­par­ent, and hon­est in­ter­ac­tions are what cit­i­zens hope for from the peo­ple they put in­to po­lit­i­cal of­fice.

This week’s “er­ror” on the pen­sion bill ex­pos­es sig­nif­i­cant weak­ne­ses with­in the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal mis­steps that stir up pub­lic out­rage seem to be oc­cur­ring with a reg­u­lar­i­ty that should be set­ting off alarms in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er. How­ev­er, the de­gree of the dis­con­nect is such that even when caught out, the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempts at dam­age con­trol are bun­gled.

Case in point, the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion and Pub­lic As­sis­tance) Bill, 2024, which was laid in Par­lia­ment and then with­drawn af­ter the out­cry over some of its un­nec­es­sar­i­ly puni­tive pro­vi­sions.

This is a con­tro­ver­sy the Gov­ern­ment brought on it­self.

It can­not cast any blame on Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who brought pub­lic at­ten­tion to the claus­es in the bill that would have un­fair­ly dis­en­fran­chised the coun­try’s most vul­ner­a­ble se­nior cit­i­zens.

Some blame has to be shoul­dered by So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox for at­tempt­ing to de­fend leg­is­la­tion that would have de­nied ac­cess to the $3,500 Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion Grant to el­der­ly peo­ple in gen­uine need.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour’s at­tempt to blame an un­named pub­lic ser­vant for the “er­ror” on­ly made mat­ters worse. Very few peo­ple are buy­ing his ex­pla­na­tion that some­one in the pub­lic ser­vice in­sert­ed the amend­ment to make peo­ple with sav­ings of over $25,000 in­el­i­gi­ble for the grant.

It can­not be that all the checks and bal­ances in the process, which should have caught the “er­ror,” were ei­ther ig­nored or failed.

The mat­ter was so bad­ly han­dled that it is still draw­ing crit­i­cism and gen­er­at­ing out­rage, al­though the bill has been with­drawn.

Hope­ful­ly, a les­son has been learnt and more care will be tak­en with the le­gal draft­ing and lay­ing of the leg­is­la­tion be­fore it is re-laid in Par­lia­ment in the fu­ture with­out the of­fend­ing sav­ings cap.

How­ev­er, that episode is just the lat­est in a se­ries of blun­ders by the Gov­ern­ment, even as it con­tin­ues to be buf­fet­ed by the reper­cus­sions from oth­er con­tro­ver­sies — cost over­runs in the To­ba­go air­port ex­pan­sion project, the ill-ad­vised ac­cep­tance of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) and the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate.

In all of these mat­ters, at­tempts to ac­count to the pub­lic and pro­vide cred­i­ble ex­pla­na­tions for de­ci­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those like­ly to af­fect the qual­i­ty of life of some cit­i­zens, have been de­fi­cient.

All these de­ci­sion-mak­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions blun­ders could have been avoid­ed by mak­ing more of an ef­fort to con­nect with the pop­u­la­tion and lis­ten to their con­cerns. In­stead, there is a huge dis­con­nect and an ero­sion of pub­lic trust.

Had the min­is­ters and pub­lic of­fi­cials re­spon­si­ble for these re­cent con­tro­ver­sies paid at­ten­tion and made more of an ef­fort to gauge the mood in the coun­try, they could have avoid­ed some ma­jor self-in­flict­ed prob­lems.

The cho­rus of com­plaints across the coun­try is not em­a­nat­ing on­ly from Op­po­si­tion op­er­a­tives, as many in the Cab­i­net seem to be­lieve. Many of the ex­pres­sions of dis­con­tent are com­ing from or­di­nary men and women who feel they are not be­ing seen and heard by their elect­ed PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The mis­steps and mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, there­fore, could have se­vere con­se­quences.