On Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 24, Trinidad & To­ba­go will cel­e­brate Re­pub­lic Day. Forty-nine years ago, on Au­gust 1, 1976, we gained Re­pub­li­can sta­tus. How­ev­er, this im­por­tant mile­stone is cel­e­brat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 24th, as this is the date when the first Par­lia­ment met un­der the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, which re­placed our In­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion. Sir Solomon Ho­choy, the then Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al, was suc­ceed­ed by Sir El­lis Clarke, who was unan­i­mous­ly elect­ed Pres­i­dent of T&T. Dr Er­ic Williams was our Prime Min­is­ter.

Our Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, which needs to be re­formed, out­lined the struc­ture of the ex­ec­u­tive, leg­isla­tive, and ju­di­cial branch­es, and list­ed fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and free­doms for all in­di­vid­u­als with­in our ju­ris­dic­tion. Are we liv­ing up to the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples out­lined in our Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion? We elect rep­re­sen­ta­tives whom we hope will be vi­sion­ary, com­pe­tent, and coura­geous; who will learn how to work across par­ty lines to build the com­mon good, cre­at­ing con­di­tions which will “en­able in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and or­gan­i­sa­tions to achieve com­plete and ef­fec­tive ful­fil­ment” (St John XXI­II).

Run­away crime is just one of our so­cial ills. The words of the philoso­pher, Plutarch, comes to mind. He said: “An im­bal­ance be­tween rich and poor is the old­est and most fa­tal ail­ment of all re­publics.”

This year, the Catholic Church cel­e­brates the 58th an­niver­sary of St Paul VI’s en­cycli­cal: Pop­u­lo­rum Pro­gres­sio (On the De­vel­op­ment of Peo­ples), in which he elab­o­rates on the con­cept of in­te­gral hu­man de­vel­op­ment. If T&T is to progress, we need to en­sure that peo­ple are at the cen­tre of de­vel­op­ment, and that de­vel­op­ment should in­clude every di­men­sion of a per­son and of each per­son. No one should be left be­hind.

Al­though af­ter 49 years, we have achieved much, there are too many on the mar­gins of our so­ci­ety; too many don’t have ba­sic ameni­ties; too many live in fear of crime and vi­o­lence. We need an over­haul of all our sys­tems – health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, hous­ing, so­cial ser­vices, em­ploy­ment etc. As we en­gage in the bud­get-mak­ing process for next year, we know that we can no longer re­ly on oil and gas to fill our cof­fers. Do we have ef­fec­tive poli­cies/strate­gies to pro­mote eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion?

We have a yoke of grow­ing debt around our necks be­cause of years of bud­get deficits. We con­tin­ue to use the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture. This is a recipe for dis­as­ter. Re­cent­ly, as the T&T Guardian re­port­ed, “PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the up­com­ing (ear­ly) Oc­to­ber bud­get will like­ly car­ry a deficit due to in­her­it­ed debt and trea­sury chal­lenges, but as­sures govt ‘will utilise cre­ative ways of fi­nanc­ing deficits’ to man­age ex­pen­di­ture and rev­enue gaps.”

We al­so need cre­ative ways of root­ing out cor­rup­tion and “ghost work­ers,” for ex­am­ple, in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), as part of a re­struc­tur­ing process. Have we dealt with the dis­missal of hun­dreds of URP work­ers in a hu­mane man­ner?

I agree with NATUC’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Michael An­nisette, that there is a “need for a tri­par­tite body of labour, busi­ness, and gov­ern­ment to ad­dress sys­temic is­sues.”

JTUM’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzi War­wick is right when he said, “The con­tro­ver­sy ex­pos­es a deep­er is­sue: the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of in­se­cure, low-paid jobs. The URP pro­gramme has been used for many years as a po­lit­i­cal weapon where work­ers in this coun­try have been trapped in cy­cles of short-term, in­se­cure em­ploy­ment with lit­tle to no pro­tec­tion, ben­e­fits, or rep­re­sen­ta­tion. This sta­tus quo can­not con­tin­ue. Our cit­i­zens and work­ers de­serve bet­ter. They de­serve the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work and live with dig­ni­ty, in jobs that re­spect their rights, val­ue their con­tri­bu­tion, and pro­vide them with long-term se­cu­ri­ty”... He ar­gued for in­vest­ment in skills and sus­tain­able sec­tors like agri­cul­ture to break the de­pen­den­cy on tem­po­rary jobs” (T&T Guardian).

The dig­ni­ty of work and the rights of work­ers is a key Catholic so­cial jus­tice prin­ci­ple. The Church has pro­duced a num­ber of en­cycli­cals and doc­u­ments on this top­ic e.g. Pope Leo XI­II’s 1891 en­cycli­cal, Re­rum No­varum - On the Con­di­tions of Labour. Pope Fran­cis said: “When so­ci­ety is or­gan­ised in such a way that not every­one has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work, to be anoint­ed with the dig­ni­ty of work, then there is some­thing wrong with that so­ci­ety: it is not right!”

As a Re­pub­li­can state, pow­er rests in us, the cit­i­zens. Ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship re­quires us to play our part in par­tic­i­pat­ing in/pro­mot­ing the po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic di­men­sions of T&T.