Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Our Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment has gone past its first 100 days in of­fice. This was the pe­ri­od to set a clear vi­sion and start walk­ing the talk. One of the UNC’s biggest cam­paign promis­es was mass job cre­ation, so the mass CEPEP, URP, and Reaf­foresta­tion Pro­gramme fir­ings ap­pear im­me­di­ate­ly in­con­sis­tent. Some con­sid­ered the move un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly cal­lous for a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The call­ing of the State of Emer­gency ear­ly in the new Gov­ern­ment’s “hon­ey­moon” re­mind­ed the cit­i­zen­ry of the pre­vi­ous one called by the last Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment, which seems to con­firm that our pro­tec­tive ser­vices are a “one-trick pony.” Still, the Gov­ern­ment scored some quick wins with the re­peal of the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, the ex­pan­sion of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, the scrap­ping of the prop­er­ty tax and the de­mer­it points sys­tem, the “stand-your-ground” con­sul­ta­tions, the ex­tra week of school va­ca­tion, and the T&TEC rate freeze.

The ques­tion of the “10%” wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and the pay­ments of new salaries and back­pay to those unions that set­tled have been avoid­ed with the Prime Min­is­ter, on­ly say­ing, “God will­ing, we will keep our promise.” Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas’ warn­ing to the WASA CEO re­gard­ing pro­mo­tions and staffing arrange­ments sug­gests that the hon­ey­moon might be over. The up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion will best re­veal the Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies, pri­or­i­ties, and ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar can­not be ex­pect­ed to do every­thing her­self, and she ex­pects high per­for­mance from her Cab­i­net, with the cit­i­zen­ry de­serv­ing noth­ing less. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ters Roger Alexan­der and Wayne Sturge, and AG John Je­re­mie, in par­tic­u­lar, must de­liv­er what no gov­ern­ment has de­liv­ered in at least a decade. Crit­i­cal to the Gov­ern­ment’s de­liv­ery are the pub­lic ser­vants, the ser­vice com­mis­sions, and the var­i­ous state agen­cies. The launch of the ANAN­SI ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence-pow­ered na­tion­al dig­i­tal as­sis­tant to ac­cess gov­ern­ment ser­vices is promis­ing, but be­hind this flashy façade re­main stacks of back­logged pa­per files and un­der­paid, de­mo­ti­vat­ed pub­lic ser­vants in act­ing po­si­tions. How can the Gov­ern­ment re­solve sys­temic in­ef­fi­cien­cies at their root caus­es?

The ad­just­ments in state ap­point­ments, cab­i­net com­mit­tees, and oth­er “re­struc­tur­ing” con­tin­ue. When will all of the pieces be in place? Will they hit the ground run­ning to give the peo­ple “val­ue for mon­ey?” Do they all share the same vi­sion and val­ues in the best in­ter­est of all the peo­ple of Trin­ba­go?

“When UNC wins, every­body wins,” even the “PNM,” it seems! Be­fore GE2025, I teased the pos­si­ble se­lec­tion of Je­re­mie as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, cut­ting the line ahead of the crowd of bril­liant “UNC” lawyers, with my Face­book fol­low­ers. That se­lec­tion was dis­missed as “ridicu­lous!” Any­way, good morn­ing, AG Je­re­mie! Best of luck in go­ing af­ter those cor­rupt PNM politi­cians!

For­mer PNM min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh’s se­lec­tion as the new UNC Gov­ern­ment’s Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment was a sim­i­lar po­lit­i­cal pole vault. An­oth­er shock­er was his re­cent rev­e­la­tion to a room full of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans that “I go­ing back to Bar­ba­dos af­ter this five years.” It is a cry­ing shame that the en­tire UNC par­ty does not pos­sess a sin­gle card-car­ry­ing mem­ber who could do the job as ef­fec­tive­ly as one we had to out­source from Bim and the PNM. Per­haps in the fol­low­ing term of the UNC Gov­ern­ment, he will fol­low in the foot­steps of for­mer PNM min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat, a spe­cial ad­vis­er to for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who op­er­at­ed re­mote­ly from Cana­da. At least Bar­ba­dos is part of Cari­com!

Sports Min­is­ter Phillip Watts is an­oth­er in­di­vid­ual from the PNM who would say that the UNC could not have won Gov­ern­ment with­out him. I had put my fin­ger to my lips on those three ap­point­ments, and I re­peat­ed to my­self: “Coun­try be­fore par­ty.” But when I heard that for­mer PNM min­is­ter Gary Hunt was se­lect­ed as chair­man of An­gos­tu­ra, that was the $2 mil­lion flag that broke the camel’s back! I can­not for­get be­ing called up­on to share blows on the likes of Calder Hart and then Hunt from the UNC hus­tings in 2010. Af­ter the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment-in­stalled An­gos­tu­ra board was “en­cour­aged” by our new UNC Gov­ern­ment to va­moose, it feels a lot like more of the same.

Are you all shocked that for­mer PNM min­is­ters and MPs are pre­ferred to those of the UNC? I as­sure you that the PNM is quite smug about this as they re­group for GE2030. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if Rho­da Bharath is called to serve be­fore Vas­ant Bharath (es­pe­cial­ly based on the in­side in­for­ma­tion she gets!). Be­sides Vas, what about Dr Fuad Khan, Rush­ton Paray, Rudy In­dars­ingh, Bhoe Tewarie, Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan, Stacey Roop­nar­ine, Damien Ly­der, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al, Gary Grif­fith, Mick­ela Pan­day, and even ME? All ah we is “PNM”? But ent “PNM” is “UNC” now? Do we have less to con­tribute than per­sons plucked out of the PNM? New PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les must be smil­ing like the Cheshire Cat!

The late In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal was a rare man who cer­tain­ly fit his “ho­n­ourable” ti­tle. I had the plea­sure of serv­ing with him on the JSC Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (2018-2020). He was renowned as pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, as well as in his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer in civ­il and struc­tur­al en­gi­neer­ing and project man­age­ment. How­ev­er, most im­por­tant­ly, he was a beloved fam­i­ly man. His fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­ans would do well to em­u­late the qual­i­ties and val­ues by which he lived. May he at­tain Mok­sha. Om sadgati.