SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

As the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) sev­enth year in of­fice comes to an end, cit­i­zens feel their lives have been re­gress­ing un­der the Gov­ern­ment, with key is­sues not be­ing ad­dressed.

How­ev­er, Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is among the favoured MPs in con­stituen­cies can­vassed by Guardian Me­dia.

On Au­gust 10, 2020, the PNM, un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, cap­tured 22 of the 41 seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion, giv­ing them a sec­ond term to man­age the coun­try’s af­fairs.

The par­ty has had to deal with sev­er­al crit­i­cal is­sues dur­ing their gov­er­nance thus far, among them the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ris­ing food prices, a tur­bu­lent econ­o­my, in­creased un­em­ploy­ment, a spike in crime and mur­ders, de­plorable roads and poor de­liv­ery of wa­ter.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed four PNM-con­trolled con­stituen­cies last week to gauge from res­i­dents the per­for­mance of the Gov­ern­ment and their MPs in the last year.

Many of the con­stituents we spoke to ad­mit­ted they felt ne­glect­ed, un­rep­re­sent­ed and stag­nat­ed.

Sit­ting un­der a tree in the com­pa­ny of a group of men in Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, Oth­is Be­strey said jobs were lack­ing in their com­mu­ni­ty, while he said the PNM need­ed to bring new faces to the par­ty.

On a scale of one to ten, Be­strey rat­ed the PNM and his MP Kennedy Richards’ per­for­mance at two, point­ing out that in the last year they have seen no im­prove­ments in their area.

Res­i­dent Dale Calder gave the Gov­ern­ment a four.

Both men de­scribed them­selves as “die-hard PNM.”

Calder said out­siders were be­ing giv­en jobs over res­i­dents, while their roads were slow­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ing.

“The PNM needs young blood. The old heads don’t want to leave. They hold­ing on­to pow­er but we need young peo­ple with new ideas to make a change,” Be­strey said.

He said the par­ty he once sup­port­ed has al­so turned its backs on the poor.

“They not do­ing any­thing for us here,” he said, voic­ing his dis­plea­sure.

In Faris Al-Rawi’s San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy, the cries were no dif­fer­ent.

Sev­en ven­dors ped­dling fish at the mar­ket at King’s Wharf ex­pressed dis­gust at the fa­cil­i­ty’s poor con­di­tions.

Mal­func­tion­ing toi­lets, no elec­tric­i­ty and a leak­ing roof were some of the prob­lems the ven­dors griped about.

The ven­dors gave Al-Rawi “a ze­ro” rat­ing when asked to as­sess his per­for­mance.

Ven­dor Ija­haman Levi Rus­sell said they on­ly see Al-Rawi when there is a me­dia event in the area.

“Oth­er than that, he does not come around. As cit­i­zens, our lives are not pro­gress­ing,” Rus­sell said.

An­oth­er ven­dor said they were fed up with emp­ty promis­es.

“A promise is a com­fort to a fool and that is how we are be­ing treat­ed right now, like fools,” he re­marked.

De­spite Ari­ma hav­ing the high­est mur­der and crime rates in the coun­try and fre­quent wa­ter woes, its MP, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, came in for heavy prais­es from con­stituents, many of whom de­scribed her as a work­horse.

In Ma­tu­ri­ta, where there have been on­go­ing gang wars, one res­i­dent of Boodoo Av­enue, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said Beck­les al­ways makes her­self avail­able to help peo­ple.

“That’s what rep­re­sen­ta­tion is about. Pen­ny may not be able to pro­vide for all of our needs but she has a gen­uine heart. I would give her a rat­ing of sev­en.”

As­sess­ing Beck­les’ ac­com­plish­ments, busi­ness­man and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, Reval Chat­ter­goon, al­so gave Beck­les a sev­en, say­ing the MP has been work­ing with the po­lice to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion in the bor­ough.

“Pen­ny would work with the peo­ple and qui­et­ly get things done,” Chat­ter­goon said.

In 2020, res­i­dent Bob­by Baksh said he plead­ed with Beck­les to as­sist in get­ting Dump Road paved and for a high­er po­lice pres­ence due to crime in the com­mu­ni­ty. Baksh said the Gov­ern­ment did not have the fund­ing to pave the road but the po­lice have been mak­ing reg­u­lar pa­trols. He gave Beck­les a “pass­ing grade.”

Res­i­dents of Tar­o­dale in Bri­an Man­ning’s San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy mean­while voiced their dis­plea­sure over the de­plorable roads, lack of drainage, floods and sew­er wa­ter ac­cu­mu­lat­ing in front of their homes.

For pen­sion­er Son­ny­lal Seecha­ran, his is­sues are nev­er-end­ing.

When­ev­er it rains, the area be­low Seecha­ran’s HDC’s house floods, as the wa­ter has nowhere to run off. There are pot­holes in the roads, some of which were patched with con­crete.

Stat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance left much to be de­sired, Seecha­ran said Man­ning de­serves a “five” rat­ing.

Near­by, Yal­lahs Av­enue res­i­dent Ter­rence Per­ry­man spoke about the land in front of his home shift­ing, which has been caus­ing the pil­lars un­der his HDC home to crack and lean. A col­lec­tion of sew­er wa­ter was al­so seen in front of his gap.

“PNM not even help­ing their own. I, who is a PNM, have noth­ing good to say about them. Man­ning would get a ze­ro from me.”

Frus­trat­ed Thorn­hill Street, Co­coyea res­i­dent Dion Daniel said for months he has been seek­ing em­ploy­ment at Man­ning’s con­stituen­cy of­fice.

“But noth­ing hap­pen­ing. I know Man­ning has pulled through in the past, so, I would give him a sev­en.”

PRO hap­py with ef­forts

Hav­ing faced un­prece­dent­ed tri­als and an un­sta­ble, ruth­less and un­pa­tri­ot­ic Op­po­si­tion in the last year, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) still man­aged to gov­ern the coun­try with dis­tinc­tion un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

This is the view of the par­ty’s PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, as she gave Guardian Me­dia an overview of the per­for­mance of some of the par­ty’s min­is­ters and MPs, ahead of the par­ty com­plet­ing its sev­enth year in of­fice to­day (Au­gust 10).

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has done a re­mark­able job in man­ag­ing the econ­o­my and keep­ing the coun­try re­silient, as well as buffer­ing against world­wide ex­tremes.

Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe, she said, has mean­while en­sured that com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties are on the rise again.

“She must al­so be com­mend­ed for the em­pha­sis on na­tion­al ath­letes who con­tin­ue to do their best to rep­re­sent our coun­try against the best in the world,” Leza­ma-Lee Sing said.

She said the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs al­so main­tained a ro­bust and rel­e­vant leg­isla­tive agen­da over the past year.

“Leg­is­la­tion rel­e­vant to the pro­tec­tion of women, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing bail amend­ment, lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and oth­er im­por­tant mat­ters, took prece­dence and was brought to both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment for de­bate. It’s a pity that the Op­po­si­tion has been so reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble, clear­ly not seek­ing the best in­ter­est of our na­tion’s peo­ple and do­ing all that it can to un­der­mine any and all ef­forts,” the PRO said.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who served in the ca­pac­i­ty of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, un­der­took a lot of work for her suc­ces­sor Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

“They have clear­ly recog­nised that cli­mate change is very re­al and have cham­pi­oned the preser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment as a pri­or­i­ty,” she said.

“Ef­forts to pro­tect the ocean and the earth’s cli­mate en­gine have been sus­tained and this must be com­mend­ed. It is now for the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion to now be­come more at­tuned to the re­al­i­ty that it’s our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to look for and take care of our coun­try and the plan­et.”

She praised the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture’s food bags ini­tia­tive as a re­sound­ing suc­cess un­der then-min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat’s tenure.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing ap­plaud­ed Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Sci­ence Fos­ter Cum­mings for dis­tin­guish­ing him­self as a cham­pi­on of and for the young peo­ple of the coun­try. The youth, ac­cord­ing to Leza­ma-Lee Sing, have seen an ex­plo­sion of op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Through his min­istry and be­cause of his vi­sion, there is a project, a course, a train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, a growth and de­vel­op­ment mech­a­nism for every youth who wants the chance. From trac­tor dri­ving class­es to the high­ly sub­scribed agri­cul­ture home­stead project to en­tre­pre­neur­ial grants via Ned­co et cetera, there is some­thing for every­one.”

The PM, Min­is­ter of Cari­com and For­eign Af­fairs Amery Browne and Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh al­so pro­vid­ed ster­ling lead­er­ship for the man­age­ment of the coun­try, the health sys­tem and the suc­cess­ful and ef­fec­tive par­al­lel health sys­tem and the ac­qui­si­tion of vac­cines, she said.

Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon was con­grat­u­lat­ed for pro­vid­ing nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth and el­der cit­i­zens alike.

As ed­u­ca­tors, Leza­ma-Lee Sing said, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ters Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian have ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge to trans­form ed­u­ca­tion in such a way “that it is rel­e­vant for all learn­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties and all in­ter­ests and in­ter­sects.”

Stat­ing that dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion con­tin­ued to be at the fore­front of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­vel­op­men­tal agen­da, Leza­ma-Lee Sing said Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Has­sel Bac­chus “is com­mit­ted to de­liv­er­ing a high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed and much-need­ed dig­i­tal ecosys­tem spe­cif­ic to the needs of this coun­try and com­pa­ra­ble to the best in the world.”

The pre­vi­ous (Kaz­im Ho­sein) and cur­rent (Faris Al-Rawi) Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters have al­so walked a long hard road to­ward lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

“Ho­sein did in­cred­i­bly well with the con­sul­ta­tions, the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee and lay­ing it in Par­lia­ment. Al-Rawi pushed it through and con­tin­ues to make lo­cal gov­ern­ment even more rel­e­vant to burgess­es,” she said.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox, she said, al­so en­sured her min­istry did all that was pos­si­ble to put sup­port mech­a­nisms in place to buffer the neg­a­tive ef­fects on af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of so­ci­ety dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Leza­ma-Lee Sing added, had dis­tin­guished him­self as a man se­ri­ous about the busi­ness of mak­ing State-pro­vid­ed util­i­ties ef­fi­cient.

“There are con­cert­ed ef­forts, how­ev­er, to make this coun­try un­govern­able. Seem­ing­ly de­lib­er­ate acts of sab­o­tage at boost­er sta­tions and in oth­er state spaces are clear in­di­ca­tors that there are those de­ter­mined to wreak hav­oc on the na­tion and our peo­ple. The in­con­ve­niences, un­nec­es­sary ex­pense, loss of pro­duc­tive na­tion­al man hours, forced pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor clo­sures...all of these con­se­quences of ruth­less acts are avoid­able. But the min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to do what they must.”

Leza­ma-Lee Sing al­so com­mend­ed the MPs with­out port­fo­lios who have been cham­pi­ons for their con­stituents and com­mu­ni­ties.

She cred­it­ed MPs Roger Munroe, Kei­th Scot­land and Kennedy Richards for their ex­cel­lence in serv­ing their con­stituen­cies and ad­vo­cat­ing for their peo­ple.

“This is not to say that MPs who have port­fo­lios have not been work­ing. They cer­tain­ly have been walk­ing hand-in-hand with their con­stituents.”