GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Con­cerns over bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays, an un­opened state fa­cil­i­ty and the slow de­liv­ery of pub­lic as­sis­tance to vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens were among the is­sues raised by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader and Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dur­ing a thanks­giv­ing ser­vice mark­ing the 138th an­niver­sary of the roy­al char­tered bor­ough.

The ser­vice was held at Bethel World Out­reach Min­istries and was at­tend­ed by mem­bers of the Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil, re­li­gious lead­ers and parish­ioners.

Beck­les high­light­ed con­cerns about a mod­ern so­cial de­vel­op­ment of­fice lo­cat­ed near the Ari­ma mar­ket, which she said re­mains un­opened and in­ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic de­spite be­ing ful­ly equipped.

The fa­cil­i­ty was com­mis­sioned by Beck­les 16 months ago, but has not yet be­come op­er­a­tional.

She ex­pressed con­cern that while the of­fice re­mains un­used, vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to face lengthy de­lays in ac­cess­ing es­sen­tial state sup­port, in­clud­ing se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sions and pub­lic as­sis­tance grants.

Beck­les said that while po­lit­i­cal pa­tience is of­ten ex­pect­ed, the con­se­quences of ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays are felt by cit­i­zens who de­pend on these ser­vices for their ba­sic needs.

“There are many of you here who have come to me for chal­lenges, for your pen­sion and your pub­lic as­sis­tance, and now it’s tak­en al­most two and three years for per­sons to get their pen­sion and pub­lic as­sis­tance,” she said.

“There are many oth­er things that you may not be hap­py with. I join with the may­or and coun­cil to say that we con­tin­ue to do the work and we ask you to pray for us.”

Turn­ing to broad­er is­sues of gov­er­nance, Beck­les warned of the ero­sion of pub­lic trust in po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions.

She ref­er­enced a na­tion­al sur­vey com­mis­sioned dur­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, which iden­ti­fied politi­cians and lawyers as among the least trust­ed pro­fes­sions.

Beck­les, who is al­so an at­tor­ney, said pub­lic of­fi­cials must make de­lib­er­ate choic­es to re­build con­fi­dence in lead­er­ship.

She said those in pub­lic of­fice must em­brace hu­mil­i­ty, truth and in­tegri­ty rather than ar­ro­gance and po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy.

“It’s not al­ways easy to serve. It is not al­ways easy to un­der­stand. Now, when you take that oath to serve, hu­mil­i­ty is re­quired,” Beck­les said.

“Less ar­ro­gance and a greater un­der­stand­ing that whilst a lot of peo­ple don’t think that politi­cians are hon­est, you re­al­ly make the choice ul­ti­mate­ly to serve in truth and with in­tegri­ty.”

Ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, Beck­les said her biggest dif­fi­cul­ty was meet­ing the in­creas­ing de­mand for school sup­plies and food ham­pers.

Re­flect­ing on her more than three decades in pol­i­tics, she said she had nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced such a high de­mand for ba­sic as­sis­tance.

“It is a deeply painful time be­cause, de­spite our best ef­forts, you sim­ply can­not help every­one,” she said.

Beck­les al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the peo­ple of Ari­ma, de­scrib­ing the bor­ough as the foun­da­tion of her po­lit­i­cal jour­ney.

Her ca­reer even­tu­al­ly led to her be­com­ing the first fe­male po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj al­so ad­dressed the gath­er­ing, en­cour­ag­ing res­i­dents to con­tin­ue work­ing to­geth­er to ad­vance the bor­ough and build a “stronger Ari­ma for gen­er­a­tions to come.”