Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs 4dys: Parasitic Relationships

Posted on May 28, 2012 by The Pantomime

The original partners steering the eat ah food coalition….photo courtesy Jyoti Communications website.

I’m sitting in one of my favourite spots in Tobago…it’s not a beach…just a secluded area with family and we just had a very heated discussion about the politics these days.

We looked at the newspapers and one relative asked, “What is Moonilal problem? Why he interfering with Rowley wife?” I had to tell him that Sharon Rowley, married to the Leader of the Opposition, was now a public figure and open to questions and queries as is Greg Bissessar and Vidwattie Newton. What we need to question is why does Moonilal and indeed the entire People’s Panchayat need to play games of deflection and mud slinging when it comes to Calder Hart and UDECOTT? If there is so much evidence to show coruption and abuse of state funds why hasn’t the AG charged and arrested Hart yet?

I also pointed that at every level of criminal activity in this country it’s only the small fries that the police are detecting and arresting. So the police got 6 welders in a mangrove chop shop….great stuff….now riddle me this….you think those fellas responsible for buying the scrap iron on the black market? Seriously? Who are the dealers in the black market that buying all of this scrap iron? And why aren’t they being arrested? The trade in metals is a world wide phenomenon now; it’s not just Trinidad, so apart from the 6 welders, who else involved and is there a sting operation being set up to catch all levels of the organisation? Or are we still only catching the little fry dry and them while the big fish swim along merrily getting fatter and fatter?

But the major issue that we argued about under that tree today was the nature of partnership. Things got very heated because there were all the obvious wounds of Trini doh like Tobago etc etc. And it doesn’t matter that my mother born and grow here, or that I spend considerable time here and have a deep affinity for the place…..to my Tobago relatives I’m the Trini half-breed…which makes me suspect!

So as we argued under the tree a couple questions rose to mind about relationships and partnerships. Prakash Ramadhar in a story yesterday or today expressed the hope that he will be consulted before the Royal Rani re-configures the Cabinet. These days everytime Prakash talks I does have to suppress the urge to snort and I will explain why. Prakash reminds me of the man in that old Swamp Dogg song “Take Time To Know Her”. Because with every new thing the UNC government throws at him he keeps acting all brand new and surprised. Almost as if he expected better from the UNC under Kamla. I am beginning to wonder what exactly was in the Pre-Nuptual Agreement signed in Fyzabad. No, seriously Prakash, can you tell me what was in the Fyzabad Accord? Can we, the people, get details?

You see folks, this is my assumption, plain and simple. I thought that Accord detailed the rules and guidelines by which the partnership was supposed to function. I assumed that the Accord laid out the structure for how this Panchayat would govern the country, how they would meet, how they would negotiate, how they would make decisions….in short I thought the Fyzabad Accord laid out the terms, vision and mission of the Partnership. What I am understanding now is that the Fyzabad Accord resembled that 1870 Scramble for Africa….5 parties met, with a map of Trinidad and Tobago and like a flock of vultures or a pack of hyenas they agreed who would get what…..the Fyzabad Accord was actually the official Eat Ah Food Agreement. You get 2 leg and a breast, we go take the neck and a wing etc etc….oh, and supersize my fries with that order please!

For Prakash to now come and say that he is hoping to be consulted means that as a group this coalition government never agreed on mutual consultations. And if they never agreed on group consultations then we don’t have a partnership or coalition government what we have is a dictatorship. We have the UNC dictating to the other members of the Coalition, who, instead of looking out for our best interests merely nod and accept the dictates, whether they are legal or not. How else does Ramadhar et al explain all the questionable decisions this government has made in the interests of the “NAYSHUN” that smack of corruption, nepotism, abuse and treachery while he has sat in the Cabinet and the Parliament? I for one will not forget his first bit of treachery….endorsing and defending the hiring of Reshmi Ramnarine! Were you consulted on that Prakash? Did you agree to stand in Parliament and defend what was from the start a slap in the nation’s face? You have stood side by side with Kamla in Parliament and spat in our faces daily and now you wish to talk principles? Are you really a partner in this coalition? Or the Trojan Horse that got the UNC into power?

Now, let me ask you this question, Prakash; if in the last 2 years the UNC has shown no real desire to have mutual consultations with its coalition partners on matters of national interests, what makes you think it will happen now?

Prakash, you jump into a marriage without checking out the nature of your partner and you expect her to change her ways now? Considering how you have waffled on other party and coalition issues, why should Kamla even bother to consult with you?

And on your insistence that a coalition government is the only way for this country to go….come again?
Prakash, from 1956 to the present coalitions have come together for no other goal than to remove the PNM from power….there is no coalition party or government to date that has had a proper development plan in place for Trinidad and Tobago beyond removing the PNM. And don’t cite the issue of the NAR to me because early on their coalition showed cracks as well that centred on leadership and squabbling who got the choicest cuts of T&T. Since your coalition govt has gotten into power all the country is seeing is a feeding frenzy…no ideas for development or taking the country forward….so how on earth is this coalition working for us?

I know you won’t answer me…because deep down you too busy eating ah food to really care….but if you still have a shred of dignity left in you Prakash, I challenge you to an open debate about the COP, it’s role in Government thus far and how exactly it’s going to apologise to the people of this country and really and truly forge a way forward.

De Vice Cyah Done!

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Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs, 2dys: A Right Royal Mess!

Posted on May 26, 2012 by The Pantomime

So, I’ve given myself a day or so to ponder a few things and ask a few questions and I’m going to weigh in on the Eat Ah Food Fete.

I am advised that Ernie Ross and Ross Advertising were responsible for putting on the spectacle, or was it debacle, that took place on Thursday night. Now, the thing with media is this, things must be posed and staged. A few days before the event I drove down to Mid-Centre Mall to check out the space that was being prepped for this “Accountability Rally” aka the Eat Ah Food Fete and looked at how the space was being managed. Because management of the space at an event like this is crucial. Why? Simple. The point of the rally is to show the people that you have their love and undying support. Look at all the public military parades in distatorships around the world. Always there are huge crowds lining the streets, waving flags and smiling cheerily for the cameras as the Government puts on its show of might, power and popularity. Kamla’s Eat Ah Food Fete was no different from these parades.

The stage itself, took up 25 per cent of the car park area, then there was a huge pavilion tent for people who would need to sit, that took up another 15-20 per cent, then there was the concession area at the back, and then the audience space. There were several cameras at the venue, even one with a crane….but the crane was never actually used. So the television audience only got panned shots of the audience, that way you couldn’t see how loosely filled the back of the crowd area was. Only 25% of the audience area was lit as well. So in short, in a space that’s probably 2 acres in size, the audience took up half an acre. The audience size on some blogs was being touted as 20-30,000. The audience size, which was at its largest during Machel Montano’s performance (after the bull shit speeches) was actually closer to 15000 – 17000 maximum. And a couple thousand of this flooded the carpark specifically for the fete and not the rally. How do I know this? I just looked at footage from a camera man who was at the event. The other thing I noticed was the pre-dominance of Afro-Trinbagonian faces at the front of the audience. And this, again, was carefully constructed and staged, like most of this show.

The People’s Partnership was making sure to send a particular message with this crowd. With panned shots, the majority of the small crowd forced into a smaller space, and a pre-dominance of black faces in the audience, this was Ernie Ross’s way of saying on behalf of Kamla to a television audience, “Look! See! We have the support of the people and further to that, look how much black people supporting us and our government.” Whether the audience was there willingly or not is hardly my concern. I’m not too intrigued with the electorate at this point. We are 3 years away from an election and their minds change. What I am interested in is, why, does a government that won a landslide victory two years ago still need to campaign and market itself so hard? And if they have so much of the electorate’s support, why are they struggling to fill a limited space like Mid-Centre Mall car park….and even further, if they have such a large and massive mandate, why are they still so heavily reliant on their Central voter base? Surely a government that won as large a victory as the People’s Partnership did in 2010 could easily go back to the Aranguez Savannah, the large one in front of those villas, and fill that up again as they did in May 2010? Yet in the last 2 years their rallies are in small, contained spaces.

The speeches at the event didn’t much surprise or perturb me in any way. Prakash Ramadhar’s speech, while subversive, was lost to many because of how he was placed in the line-up. His speech, is in my opinion, too little too late. All the corruption he’s talking about, he has been part of. Vidwattie’s travel expenses was approved by a Cabinet he sat on…as was Vernella’s credit card over spending and Reshmi Ramnarine’s appointment to the SIA. So what morals and principles you returning to COP? Wipe your own ass before you instructing others that they have lint in theirs, son!

I expected no one from the UNC government to make any startling revelations. I didn’t expect any of them to address the issues that really concern the country: the nepotism, corruption, abuse of public funds, CAL, CLICO, crime, the economy, the drug economy, the creeping murder rate, the failed SoE. I didn’t expect any of these to be addressed, and I did expect to hear the PM say that there was no money in the treasury, and then point out all the new projects there were going to do with the “no money in the treasury”. I also expected to hear the PM continue to blame the PNM…..and this my friends is where we get to the crux of the matter about how desperate the PPG has become.

A significant percentage of the population are against these rallies. The dissent is beginning to make its way through even on media polls that might be manipulated. Go online and listen in on FB groups, look at the Twittersphere, or read the Jahaji Desi group posts. You can’t miss the dissatisfaction and disaffection that’s become palpable and obvious within the electorate. For Abdullah and Ramadhar to feel ok to oppose Kamla before and on the day of the rally tells you that they and all are aware that the winds of change are shifting….ever so imperceptibly.

While PNM till ah Dead people might be frothing over Sugar Aloes’ performance, I can only smile. Because it further emphasises just how desperate and de-based this government has become. Aloes needs a permanent place for his Calypso Tent…and Kamla willing to get in bed with him, just to prove a point. She has, like many of her rabid supporters and apologists, conveniently forgotten Aloes’ career. Anyone remember his advice to Panday in 2008 to “Look in De Mirror”?

Think back and study your head good. One of the things that has constantly plagued the UNC as a political entity is the in-fighting and political back stabbing that happens in the party. How many times have Panday and Ramesh fallen out with each other, and then fallen back in love again? Or Panday and Ramnath? Indeed, the many fallouts between Panday and Ramesh led to the UNC’s defeat in the early part of this millennia. Then Panday accepted Ramesh back into the fold, at a point in time when Dookeran was the party’s political leader and that led to the split that launched the COP……anyone remember any of this? This image of a dog returning to its own vomit is something the UNC as a party struggles with. It’s one of the reasons the party is seen as corrupt and untrustworthy. It’s the main reason they had to partner with the COP….to give the impression of being less corrupt and having principles.

Then, the party brings Sugar Aloes onto the stage this year and prove to the electorate, that COP presence or not, this party will stoop as low as it needs to in order to impress the electorate. Now, again, explain to me as if I am a 6-year-old, why a party with a massive mandate and the ability to hire whichever entertainer it wants would go the route of Sugar Aloes? A calypsonian who has insulted and vilified Oma Panday, Indian women and the Indian population generally? Why would Kamla feel that she needed to have Sugar Aloes honour her onstage that night? To make a point, folks. To say, “Look, see. Even die-hard PNMites supporting we.” So, in order for Kamla to prove her popularity with the masses she had to pay Sugar Aloes to sing to her and kiss her onstage. Talk is there are breakfast chats scheduled to give the Revue Tent a permanent home.

Why on earth would a party that has such a massive mandate need to continue to pull tricks from an obviously shallow magician’s hat to wow the population….unless they have already realised that they don’t have the same level of popularity that brought them to power in 2010?

No amount of silly quips from Roodal Moonilal is going to get me to see the debacle on Thursday night in any other light than as a sure sign that this party is hitting rock bottom and scraping around for ideas. Couple the Aloes performance with Kamla’s speech that still relied heavily on summoning the Manning Jumbie, Calder Hart and words like Squandermania. Kamla delivered a particularly luke warm 2010 campaign speech all over again….and the numerous journalists that have become media advisers and speech writers to this government have clearly run out of ideas.

What’s going to happen in 2015 when there is no Manning Bobolee to beat like a drum because it is now The Keith who is leader and his brother isn’t his nurse and travel assistant? What use will it be to call Calder Hart’s name in 2015 when your AG has made no real effort to arrest or charge Calder Hart because there are no charges to be laid against Hart? What’s going to be the point of mentioning Manning’s Squandermania in 2015, when your Squandermania, Kamla is all that’s going to be at the forefront of the voters’ mind?

This government has become desperate, 2 years into their term, they are still campaigning, never started ruling and their campaign has run out of steam. The population already seeing them for the naked plunderers of the treasury that they are. And it becomes glaringly apparent every day that every government Ministry and state board has simply become CEPEP positions for their friends and family members. We elected a CEPEP Government!

Kamla has promised a Cabinet reconfiguration…..a new word for Cabinet Reshuffle….and she is hoping that this re-shuffle is going to magically make her government perform better. Mark my words, Kamla has until May 24th 2013 to turn the performance of her Government around. If she doesn’t manage to turn her government around in 1 year, then no amount of short term projects whether it orange, green or yellow and wildspending in 2014/2015 will help her. Her underperformance will spell doom for the COP, the UNC and any woman wanting to be leader within the foreseeable future. If Kamla doesn’t stop campaigning and start really governing within the next year, then I foresee a PNM return to power in 2015 that could last for a long, long time.

This country actually needs healthy political parties and governments to move forward. Trust me folks, a Balisier Reichenstag is not a good thing for this country….look at what it did to Manning’s term in office. But until the 5 parties that make up this pappy show government get their act in order, that may be precisely what we are looking at!

De Vice Cyah Done!

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs, 1 day: Going for Shock Value

Posted on May 25, 2012 by The Pantomime

The PP dropped two bombs last night, but one was more obvious than the other and will be talked and beaten to death over the water coolers today, while the other bomb, might well remain in stealth mode for a while.

The overt bomb was of course the appearance of Sugar Aloes at the Eat Ah Food Fete. And if Aloes’ presence didn’t emphasise for use the extent of trough feeding going on under this regime then we are truly misunderstanding the ethos of this government. The whole point of producing Aloes onstage was of course to undermine the confidence of PNM supporters. It was the PP’s way of saying, “Look, even all yuh biggest critics joining us.” Then I get up this morning and see a Guardian story that says the Calypso Revue is looking for a home… this is the tent Aloes belong to…I wonder if land for the tent owners was part of Aloes’ contractual arrangement last night? The battle for Elections 2015 is well underway folks. Indeed it never stopped. This is a government that has not yet begun to rule, and has certainly never stopped campaigning.

The other bomb though, got lost in the fireworks of Aloes’ presence….and that was Prakash Ramadhar’s speech…..the Praks said plenty last night and at certain points Hansley Ajodha and Anil Roberts looked particularly perturbed and even the crowd seemed a little restless by the speech. I’m going to re-print the speech here…some of it was highlighted by the sender of the speech , so careful you don’t get prejudiced by it….but Ramadhar’s COP made a bold move last night and dropped some fighting words. Unfortunately for him Ernie Ross and the show’s organisers had the foresight to lose Ramadhar’s stage presence between several performances. So the importance and impact of what he had to say didn’t come just before Kamla’s lengthy and slurrred harangue.

There is a lot more I can and will say about the Eat Ah Food Circus Show last night….more to come..but for now, take a look at Ramadhar’s speech:

ADDRESS BY

THE HONOURABLE PRAKASH RAMADHAR

POLITICAL LEADER OF THE CONGRESS OF THE PEOPLE

PEOPLE’S PARTNERSHIP 2nd ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION

MAY 24^th 2012

MID CENTRE MALL CAR PARK

My friends I am here with you tonight because I want to be here. Tonight is a night to reflect on the past two years and to talk of the way forward. Tonight is a night to acknowledge all the work that we have done so far but also to identify the areas in which we need to improve.

Lest there be any doubt I want to make it clear that the Congress of the People is committed to the People’s Partnership and we will do everything we can to make this the most successful government in the history of our country.

Some people are telling me that if I mount the platform tonight, the COP will lose face. Let me make something abundantly clear: the COP will never lose if the country gains! Trinidad and Tobago stands to gain tremendouslyif the People’s Partnership Government lives up to the expectations of the population and delivers on the promises which it made in 2010. The COP will see that it does both of these.

WHERE WE CAME FROM

We must all remember, in 2007, the UNC, COP, and PNM fought independently and the PNM won 26 of the 41 seats.

Thereafter, the Congress of the People began a series of meetings with NGOs, Community and Faith-based groups, the Labour Movement including Errol Mcleod and David Abdullah, Ashworth Jack and the TOP in Tobago.

You will recall, our reaching out to the national community was termed the “Grand Consensus”, a movement or a coalition of interests which also included the beginning of a formal relationship with the United National Congress.

Many will remember that it was the COP that invited the UNC to attend its National Assembly in 2009 in San Fernando, in which the then MP for Siparia, the Honourable Kamla Persad-Bissessar addressed COP supporters. The COP together with the Labour Movement and others demanded that the Property Tax proposal of the then Manning Government never see the light of day, and we chanted across the country “Axe the Tax”. We also stood with thousands of our citizens who shouted “No Smelter” in protest of the proposed Smelters in La Brea and Cedros, and we stood with thousands more with residents and fishermen of Claxton Bay against the Essar Steel Plant. We fought hard for a Children’s Life Fund since 2008, so that no parent will ever have to be told that they could not save their child’s life because they had no money. We stood tall in defence of our democracy against Manning’s plan for a top-down Constitution and on the alleged widespread corruption at UDECOTT and other State Boards. The Congress of the People was there when only few dared to speak out against the Manning Government.

Today there is a Children’s Life Fund. Today there are no smelters. Today there is no property tax which could see you losing your home. Today there is no stealth constitution being debated.

Two years into our first term in office, we must therefore pause and reflect. We must reflect on what the five parties that make up the Partnership came together to achieve. We must reflect on where we were going under the Manning Administration. Remember the rampant corruption? Remember the leadership style that ignored the concerns of the people? Remember the response to the voices against the smelter? Remember the fragile economy and out of control inflation?

The People’s Partnership came together to fix all that. Our parties came together to change the style of governance in Trinidad and Tobago. We promised to listen. We promised to be fair and equitable. We promised to be transparent. We promised to be the opposite of all that we stood against.

We knew that we set expectations high. We knew that it would be difficult to meet all of the expectations of the population at the same time. But this is not an excuse.

As we mark our second anniversary in Government, we are being accused of not listening. We are being accused of not being fair and equitable. We are being accused of not being transparent. Today talk of corruption in the government is the main topic of conversation on many street corners, dinner tables and in many board rooms. Surely you do not want your government to be seen like this, do you?

My friends, we have choices to make. We can choose, like the last administration, to dismiss all the voices calling on us to do better as detractors. That is what the Manning Administration did. OR we can choose to listen.

We must choose, from today onward, to return to the ideals which we held prior to May 24^th 2010. We cannot serve the people if we stop listening to you. We cannot serve the people if we ignore your pain and suffering.

We must listen and act to address the feelings of alienation among the youths in the urban areas.

We must listen and act to find and root out the corruption which so many of our citizens are complaining against. Where we find corruption, we must ensure that those responsible are held accountable. There must be no covering up.

We must listen and act to preserve the environment and communities. Specifically we must engage the highway re-route movement in meaningful dialogue in which we speak with them not talk to them.

While there is much we have done, we must acknowledge that the population expects and deserves more. You brothers and sisters deserve to see a real improvement in your lives. You deserve to feel proud about your government.

THE PARTNERSHIP

In this Coalition government that is the People’s Partnership, we must now press reset. As we reflect on our many successes in our first two years in office, we have to set priorities for the next three years to bring meaningful change to the lives of our citizens. We must also reflect on the nature of the relationships between the Partners.

It saddens me to no end that the MSJ feels the need to take such drastic action in relation to the Partnership. They are a valuable member of the Partnership and we have a responsibility to get the relations between the partners right so that we can spend more time on issues of governance.

In this regard, it is no secret the COP has been unhappy with the way in which it has been treated. We cannot continue in this manner. When I began my speech I said that the COP is committed to the Partnership. We are.We will not however tolerate further disrespect.

It is time that we establish firm, clear rules of engagement. This is the only way to ensure that issues between the partners do not get in the way of issues of governance. We must have regular Leadership Meetings and meetings of the Chairmen.

In addition, we should establish a Partnership Council made up of three people from each Party. This Council will seek to resolve contentious issues and make recommendations to the Leaders.

We must agree on a legislative agenda for the next two years which takes into account the priority issues for each party. In this regard, I have been given responsibility for constitution reform and it is my intention to have a draft constitution ready for discussion within one year after full and exhaustive consultations.

That is why, despite the hurt and disappointment, all this talk of mash up and walking cannot be entertained now. We have the opportunity in the Government to change the way the government operates. We must seize this opportunity and fight to infuse our ideals into the way the government operates.

There are many who wish to see this Coalition destroyed. They have trained their guns on the COP because they know that it is the COP that glues the Partnership together. I warn them all. We might be outnumbered but we will never be out gunned. The COP will always stand for what is right and best for the people of Trinidad and Tobago, even when it may be unpopular to do so. We will not be baited into making rash decisions which will have dire long-term consequences for the people of our great nation.

We will be firm in our commitment to the Partnership just as we will be firm in our ideals. Should the two ever come into conflict, we shall say so.

In so doing, the COP will always articulate its point of view loudly but respectfully. We will always demand the respect we deserve and we will always work in the national interest.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

We have the opportunity in this year of our 50^th Independence anniversary to deliver on the long unfulfilled promise of constitutional reform. It is in every citizen’s interest to make your government deliver on this promise.

A new or radically revised constitution will put in place the mechanism to ensure your government listens to you not just once every five years but throughout its term in office. As we promised in the manifesto, we will introduce in referenda, the right to recall non performing officials, term limits and fixed election dates.

Guided by you, we will strengthen the institutions of state to ensure that no single person has absolute power. With your input, we will give more power to local government. My brothers and sisters, you will have a chance to determine the way our country is run for the next several decades; that is what it means to be in government.

If we do it right, constitutional reform and the new structures which we put into place will mean not just change but transformation of the way your government interacts with you. If we do it right, constitutional reform and the new structures which we put into place will have a direct impact on your life.

It is my view and the COP’s view that proportional representation is a must of the new constitution and we will argue vociferously for this. If you were to agree with us and change the electoral system, Coalition politics will become even more entrenched. That being the case, we cannot squander the opportunity we have now.

My pledge to you is to work on this new constitution with vigour so that within one year, I can deliver to you a blueprint for a new way of life.

THE GOVERNMENT

Prime Minister, in me and COP you have genuine Partners. I ask you to ignore the dividers and naysayers. Let us work together to deliver the transformation that we promised the population. We cannot do that if we believe that daggers are never far from our backs.

Our task is not easy but it is necessary. We find ourselves at the crossroads of history. It is junction which we have been to many times before. We know what lies at the end of the road we took in 1988 and 2007. You and I and all our Cabinet and party colleagues are here now. Let us shake off the shackles of the past. Let us put the mistakes and missteps behind us and work with the national community to re-build their trust. Let us rebuild the trust amongst our partners.

It is our responsibility to walk a different road. On that road I will stand with you Prime Minister against all enemies of the people. I ask you however to use your office to ensure that we never allow those enemies to creep up to us in government. The enemies of corruption, bias and injustice must be slain!

Together we can achieve far more than we can ever do alone.

Brothers and sisters, I give my commitment, as Leader of the COP, to be straight and forthright with you and the nation, even when it may not be popular to do so. This is not a popularity contest.

I give my commitment to the patriots of the Congress of the People, the People’s Partnership, and of Trinidad and Tobago, to never betray your trust!

I give my commitment to work fearlessly and tirelessly for a better, brighter, fairer, safer, more equitable and happier Trinidad and Tobago!

I give my commitment that in all I do, I will work for you!

May God Bless us all.

730 ways to please your man in bed….or 2 years of being screwed by the PPG!

Posted on May 24, 2012 by The Pantomime

The stage for tonight’s Eat Ah Food Fete being erected in Mid Centre Mall carpark.

All now so the action hot in Mid-Centre Mall Car park as they put the finishing touches on the tents, chairs and trestle tables. Sohari leaf washing by the hundreds and is real plenty Sani-cup, garbage bag and chubby buy from one of the party financiers who does supply them kind of thing. The annual Eat Ah Food Fete is underway.

The Prime Minister is saying this is not a fete in here….(cue David Rudder). She maintains that this is actually the Government (sans the MSJ, but with a heavy dose of Prakash to make up for it) coming to account to the people….This is the same Government that won’t answer our questions in the Parliament, or when the media interrogates them in post-cabinet meetings or over the phone. But tonight, yet another year later, in a line-up that features Rikki Jai, KI and Machel Montano (three artists that either sing about or sell rum) the PM plans to account to the country for her government’s achievements in the past year.

You will no doubt hear about the numerous mini-projects that they put on fast track in the last month to allow them to have things to report.
You will hear about the new anti-Gang Unit set up within the Police service….what you won’t hear about is how dismantling SAUTT and the OPVS, and deploying the Air Guard helicopters to function as her private taxi service have fucked our national security measures up. What you also won’t hear is a proper comparison of crime statistics between last year and this year (minus the lull period of the SoE) and a breakdown of how the removal of certain National Security infrastructure has led to murders and gang activity once again being on the upsurge. You also won’t hear a word on that breach of breaches, the Robbery at the SIA office in Arima that would have remained covered up but for the TnT Mirror Story! One week after the robbery the police are finally visiting the crime scene. I’m sure forensics will find something, aren’t you?

You will hear about the Oncology Centre for Penal, what you won’t hear about is the medical scandal about the over radiated patients at the BC Lara Cancer Centre, you also won’t hear any explanations for all the instances of medical malpractice that leave citizens bereft of loved ones and an explanation. You also won’t hear them explain why after two years in government they only now know that certain facilities are understaffed.

You will hear about all the sweeping changes being planned for SEA. You won’t hear why the indecent haste to change this exam in this way and the impact it’s likely to have on our failing education system. You won’t hear about all the questionable tendering going on in with Min of Ed contracts. You won’t hear about teachers having to leave their classes unattended for three weeks to attend Min of Ed crash courses that defy all pedagogical rules of learning.

You will hear talk of how the trip to India and all the other numerous trips have yielded trade and investment possibilities. You will never get details on what those possibilities are or what the trips really cost us….you also will not hear that they met a stable economy, and a treasury that was not in debt and they have now managed to screw the entire economy up. You won’t hear any explanations about why Dookeran’s constant promises of blue skies ahead never materialised. You will not hear that Devant Maharaj is actually an incompetent Minister of Transport, and he has taken an airline that was at least managing and has now turned it into one of the biggest drains on the economy. You won’t hear that the New CAL chairman, at his first meeting as chairman of the cash strapped CAL Board put up for discussion the purchase of a brand new Audi SUV for his use even though the chairpersons of state boards are not entitled to state vehicles. You won’t hear the PM or the Minister of Finance discuss the economic impact of the SoE and explain why months later the country still cannot recover from that 107-day interruption that was supposed to be part of the PM’s crime plan…no wait, it was to avert the non-assassination plot…no it was to find diesel bunkers in Beetham….no, wait, it was to avoid war with Columbia…no wait, it was to…

I wish I could think of all the other areas they are going to list as achievements, but their numerous and glaring failures are far too apparent to me.

In yesterday’s Guardian, a columnist wrote a letter to the PM advising her on what her goals should be for the next year in office. If it isn’t sad enough that this government didn’t have a 5-year strategic plan, now we have columnists offering 1-year plans for governance…ah well. The columnist compared Kamla’s term in office thus far to Barack Obama’s; made his customary attack on the PNM and Afro-creole culture and then gave the PM a tip that’s useful, but in opinion impossible for this regime. He advised the Prime Minister to “takes possession of the Trini imaginary”. I read this and smiled. Partly because of what he was exhorting the PM to do and partly because all the things he constantly ascribes as being features of PNM people and PNM followers: inherent laziness, begging for handouts, playing the victim, incessant partying and falling prone to a culture of bacchanal is also very true of the UNC and People’s PArtnership Government. If not more so. This government has, in less than two years, made the entire public sector and ALL state enterprises, into CEPEP/Make Work Programmes for their friends and family members. Now if that isn’t out-PNMing the PNM I don’t know what is!

What the columnist is alluding to, with this business of capturing the “imaginary” is a major concept in nationalism and identity making. Crucial concepts for any politician to master if you are going to run a country, and the ultimate concept to master when you have decided you are going to create a nation. Historians understand how to manipulate the “imaginary”. Traditionally, in fact, historians or certainly afficionados of history, have been some of the greatest architects of nationalism and national identity. But before I start to get all abstract and convoluted let me break it down.

The idea of building a nation…or NAAY Shun, as Kamla’s fake accent pronounces it, is a fairly recent concept. Mid 1800′s is the oldest it goes back really, according to thinkers like Hobsbawm and Michel Foucault.

The architect of this nation will always be recognised as Eric Williams…..and Williams was a historian…in fact, he was a revisionist historian. As his PhD thesis, that eventually became published as Capitalism and Slavery will attest. And Williams, a man of singular intelligence, insight and foresight, figured out that to take this colony into Independence he also had to create an identity for it. Savvy as ever, Williams even re-wrote the colony’s history, and then from 1956 – 1981 set about developing the nation as we know it today. It is Williams’ ideas, programmes and implementation that built and developed the idea of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago: for better or for worse. And this is where every other political party will always stumble!

Every political party that has come since the PNM has two battles to wage….coming to terms with their own concepts of nationalism and national identity in the face of Williams’ construction of it, and then coming up with another brand of nationalism that is acceptable and palatable to an electorate that has already unconsciously absorbed and accepted these concepts of nationalism and national identity. In short, we done know what being Trini is…..so any new ideas of “Trini” has to pass muster with us.

The PPG, the UNC, the COP will fail simply because none of their leaders or any member of leadership is the calibre of historian that Williams was. In this year of our 50th anniversary the PPG have tried to avoid all mention of Eric Williams, because it will mean having to mention the PNM and therefore having to acknowledge that much of the infrastructure they have come and met, and regularly use and abuse was developed under Eric Williams, and then maintained under Chambers and then Manning. Indeed every government since 1981, whether it was PNM-led or not, has been coming to terms with the Williams legacy. Every regime we have had lives under his shadow….both in terms of his achievement and his failures.

Any Indian-led government in this country has to come to terms with the stigma of its “Indianness” and “foreignness”, this is something that Basdeo Panday understood far better than Kamla, Suruj, Roodal, Sat, Devant or Tim. When the Bas won the 1995 elections he set about expanding the UNC voter base because he realised that while an Indian electorate brought him into power, it wasn’t an Indian electorate that would keep him there. The Bas understood only too well that even after being here 150 plus years Indian culture wasn’t understood or entirely embraced outside of its enclaves. And that’s both the fault of Indians as well as other groups in the society. The Bas understood too that in a space that had been shaped for more than 30 years (more than a century actually) by a hybrid form of Afro/Euro culture (what we like to call creole), the general population wouldn’t accept national culture being forcefully “Indianised”. They would embrace the bits they liked (food, music, holidays), and continue much as they had in the past. In his travel book “The Middle PAssage” VS Naipaul also pointed out the insularity of the Indian population (prior to Independence) and pointed out that the Indian in Trinidad still looked to India as its source. As a result, the wider perception of the population is that Indians don’t have a national identity, they have an “East Indian” (as in continental) identity. The fascination with all things Bollywood doesn’t help dispel this stigma. And unfortunately, many Indians who do embrace a concept of Trinidadian identity are ignored, or worse yet ridiculed and shunned as not being national enough.

Kamla’s Partnership has a lot of work to do if it is to ever capture the national imaginary. Kamla has relied on putting on fake accents and donning the mixed-up persona of “Bollywood Princess”, with a dash of “Hillary Clinton”…but she gets it wrong. The PM is constantly this elusive, feeble, female persona who relies heavily on the men around her. Mrs Tulsi in suits, make up and up-dos. The Old She-Fox. Confront Kamla on any uncomfortable issue and the answer she recites gives you get the impression she has slipped through your fingers and run behind a tree Bollywood style.

Her Partnership would have to employ real thinkers, not the hangers on and parasites she has around her….and they would have to have a vision about Trinidad and Tobago that is rooted here and resonates here. And that will be difficult particularly because Indian identity in Trinidad is still a very slippery thing. Many Indians here look to Bollywood and North America for their social and cultural norms….Kamla’s idea of national culture unfortunately is soca, chutney, rum and roti. She cannot see beyond the pappy show mentality that she grew up in and has now come to espouse.

In the end, there is no re-writing of the “Trini-imaginary” by the People’s Partnership, because when Williams wrote it he wrote it well. Williams understood the potency of what he was doing. Whereas Kamla and her cohorts only understand greed and have a limited ambition. In their minds the way to stay in power is to buy votes and rig elections. Before a national election was ever called Williams realised that the way to build empires is to capture the people’s imagination and hold it.

This Partnership doesn’t have that power or understand it. Tonight they will continue to lie to a disgusted population in front of an audience that has been bussed in and paid to party hard. That’s why their fete tonight will seem grasping, vulgar and desperate to many.

An important part of any nation’s imagination is its Independence story. Last year the SoE denied us a celebration. The people remember and hold it in mind. This year’s celebration will be a disappointment. Mark my words. The country is frustrated, disillusioned, broke and bitter. Come August the people’s minds will turn to Eric Williams, which invariably means they will turn to the PNM and their thoughts will force comparisons. Many will still recoil at the thought of Manning, but many more will continue to think of Williams and what he stood for….no country forgets the architect of their Independence. And it is in these quiet ways that the PPG will lose it’s battle for the nation’s imaginary and quietly fuck itself into irrelevance.

Kamla will be remembered….no doubt about it. As the worst leader the country ever had…until the next worst leader….

De Vice Cyah Done.

The Old She Fox!

Posted on May 22, 2012 by The Pantomime

A worried looking KPB. Photo courtesy Newsday’s website.

VS Naipaul has long since been my ultimate guide for understanding the part of Trinidad I grew up in. Especially books like Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira, Miguel Street and of course, The House For Mr Biswas. Read the his description of Mrs Tulsi, the conniving and deceptive matriarch of the household, a woman that Biswas comes to call the old she-fox because he believes he has been conned into a loveless and unwanted marriage to serve as a bond servant to the family, and you’d be hard pressed to believe that Kamla Persad-Bissessar was not the person he patterned the character after. Indeed, the character is patterned after Naipaul’s grandmother, from all accounts. And she is painted as manipulative, insidious and dangerous. What brought Mrs Tulsi to mind this morning was the way our current Prime Minister seems to use her ill health and female fragility to it’s optimum use.

Yesterday at 10 am MSJ Leader, David Abdullah announced his party’s non participation in the Eat Ah Food Fete. He announced too the withdrawal of MSJ members from state boards, and roundly boofed the current regime for partying at an inappropriate time for all the wrong reasons. It was the kind of press conference and announcement that was bound to set national tongues a-wagging. But we’d hardly had time to digest the impact of Abdullah’s statements than there was an announcement by Ag PM Jack Warner (imagine, a man under corruption charges from FIFA is our Head of Government…if this is not an indication of how low we have fallen) that the PM, on state visit to various parts of the Caribbean and in Barbados, had fallen ill and had been checked into the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Reactions were mixed. Some citizens immediately made a joke of it, alluding to the PM being hungover or “rum sick”. It is not the first time the PM has fallen ill while serving. Last year when she succumbed to a bout of illness, her Minister of Education blamed it on two tins of peas attacking her ankle. Prior to the peas tin attack the Prime Minister managed to contract dengue at the same time that several other citizens, and her grandson were also suffering attacks.
It’s no secret that the PM is ill. What is a secret are the actual details of her illness. And since the PM is now a public figure, citizens want,and I think quite rightly, to know what is the exact state of the PMs health. In 2010 the PM missed a meeting with Hillary Clinton because she was once again ill.
But yesterday’s illness made me do a double take…this morning.In the past whenever the PM succumbed to a bout of illness it would take days for her to recover. At 6pm last evening there was the announcement of her illness and the PM undergoing a “battery of tests”, at 7 am this morning news reports indicated that the PM had discharged herself from the hospital and was on her way home. Unless I am mistaken tests usually require a certain period of time to be run, and there is always an observation period. Was the PM in hospital long enough for proper tests to be run? Was what amounted to less than a 24-hr stay actually adequate? I can only assume that the PM was so longing to be home with us that at the risk of her own health she discharged herself and came home. It’s either that or the PM wasn’t as sick as we thought her. Since arriving in Trinidad she flew to the San Fernando General Hospital and then went home. The Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex has been put on alert.

The Ag Prime Minister, Warner, has used this current bout of illness to justify the PM’s need to have her sister or cousin function as her travel assistant. He didn’t call for a nurse, or medical practitioners to accompany the PM on her state visits…he called for family members to be allowed to accompany her on trips. He didn’t call for a state approved assistant, he called for a family member to be allowed to travel with the PM on her trips.

Whenever Mrs Tulsi faced a rebellion in her household, she often fell ill, took sick, or had fainting spells that required headsapping by her daughters and contriteness and obedience from the transgressors.
I can’t quite shake the growing feeling that this PM is once again using her frailty as a get out of jail free card.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Anals of Achievement #5: The Wussified Vagenda

Posted on May 20, 2012 by The Pantomime

It’s no secret that I think feminism is a failed ideological concept. Any ideology that seeks to privilege one thing over another or to assert itself into a position of superiority over another ideology is dumb. Which is why I also don’t believe in any form of ethnocentrism. Nothing wrong with being proud about being African,Amerindian, Chinese…you know the drill. Nothing wrong with being proud about your mammary glands or your testicles either….although personally i get tired of the constant dick stroking and milk duct fellating that I see being practised as gender positive stances nowadays. But everything is wrong when you pit one thing as superior to another.
It’s also no surprise to any one reading this blog regularly that I think PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the worst thing to happen to the National and Caribbean Vagenda. To me, the PM’s antics are like taking Sex and the City, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Glamour, Elle, Bazaar, Vogue, MTV, Ladies Home Journal and a copy of What Every Woman Should Know, tossing it in a blender and then heating it up in a crack pipe. The shit is toxic!
But worse than the PM’s antics, it’s the larger ideologies of the party that’s toxic too; because part of their 2010 campaign was the subliminal “Give the Woman a Chance” that had the Hazel Browns, the Gabrielle Hoseins and the Merle Hodges all eagerly batting in Kamla’s corner….and now almost 2 years later, that feminist lobby remains so mum on so much abuse of women and female-centrism that I’m convinced they batting for the other team.

If you ever bought into the stereotype that woman are weak, given to frivolous things like clothes and shopping, love to party, prefer the men around them to take the lead, use their gender as an excuse to get out of sticky situations, have a bad head when it comes to money and financial issues, and aren’t particularly good at disciplining naughty children or negotiating firmly, then this government under Kamla Persad-Bissessar provides all the raw data you need.
If, even worse, you believe the stereotype that Hindu women are docile, ruled by their men, given to secret drinking, turn a blind eye to the abuse of their children and secretly are curious about inter-ethnic relationships well the current PM and her inner circle entourage don’t do much to dispel that notion either.

There are a few moments that have occurred under the People’s Panchayat reign, that, if I had bought into the feminist agenda, would make me ashamed of this current government.

It’s no secret that Sat Maharaj, head of the Hindu organisation the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, wields great power in this government. Upon the PP taking office, Sat, a private citizen to the best of my knowledge, called for a ministry of multiculuralism. From inception to 2010 the ministry was always ever called Culture, and whatever else it was attached to. The Maha Sabha argued that it should be called Multiculturalism and quicker than you could smudge a tika onto your third eye the PP Government changed the name, and then as a concession held a few public consultations to pretend to seek consensus about the name of the ministry, all the while already calling the ministry multiculturalism and revealing to the entire world that they have no idea what multiculturalism really means, or further, how it is applicable to our space. So, from day one, both Sat Maharaj and this government revealed how skewered and inept their policies on culture and multi-ethnicity are, and in my honest opinion this government has turned out to be the most divisive and prejudiced when it comes to issues of gender and ethnicity.

But it seems, for whatever reason, maybe his caste, Sat Maharaj can do no wrong. His months-long vendetta against the principal of the Tunapuna Hindu Primary School, his advocation of her harassment by the PTA and security officers on the compound, and his justification of the firing of a clerical employee at the school because of visible pantylines would be enough to have the feminist lobby in any sane country laying his body to rest under a wreath of incensed vaginas. But in Trinidad you don’t get a whiff of protest from the pro-Kamla feminazis. Nope, not a word. Instead there were a slew of blogposts about breastfeeding and using the word “cunt” creatively in lectures. Even I began to think I must be hallucinating and that the attack on Sita Gajardharsingh-Nanga was a figment of my imagination.
But shortly thereafter, during the 107 day suspension of Citizen Rights, fondly known as the State of Emergency, and the only idea Kamla had for decreasing criminal activity in this country, more and more women were being brutalised by police officers as part of the daily raids of “hotspots”. Now we all know how our local police service renowned for its politeness, civility and customer service; now, imagine a police service that unrestrained by the Constitution and think about what happened during that 107 day period to women who happened to live in hot spots? Some of the reports made it online and they weren’t pretty. The only protests I saw coming from the pro-feminist spokespersons were blog posts about how the SoE made sitting on their front porches to breastfeed that more possible and comfortable. By the time these posts came around I had to glue my eyelids to my browline to prevent the violent eye-rolling that seemed to come as a matter of course.

Earlier this year when the PM cited her “special needs” as a female Prime Minister as justification for her very illegal acts of nepotism where her sister Vidwattie Newton was concerned, I was sure that the pro-Kamla feminazis would see that even this was crossing the line. There’s no way you could justify nepotism…i mean isn’t this one of the reasons we wanted to get rid of Manning? And then lo and behold, not one but two prominent members of the local feminist movement in newspaper reports and a letter to the editor came out in defence of Kamla as a female Prime Minister having “special needs”. Which was their quiet way, I can only imagine, of endorsing the Prime Minister’s spending of $.8m of public funds on a sister who allegedly functioned as a travel assistant and nurse to the PM. Mind you, it would be revealed later that there is no legal cabinet position for a travel assistant to the PM, nor is Ms Newton a registered nurse. Further, for the last three state trips the PM took she suddenly didn’t need her sister and was managing with a state appointed assistant. I wonder if any of the defenders of the “Special Needs PM” felt like an ass? I know I would have.
Further to the abuse of public funds is the PM’s constant misspeaking, which in the normal world is actually called lying….but Kamla real clever, she never admits to doing wrong…she just finds a new word for describing wrong doing and admits to that instead.

Vernella Alleyne-Toppin is another member of this cabinet who has totally messed up the good name of woman with her spending habits and bad accounting….and don’t forget that as far as she is concerned her abuse of public funds wasn’t wrong. She just wasn’t properly informed…..imagine that…a black woman who spends more than she earns, can’t balance a budget nor account for the money she spends. Vernella more than let down the side, oui. Tobago should revoke her citizenship!

Then there was the case of Cheryl Miller. I wrote about Miller for an entire week on this blog because I couldn’t believe what was playing out before my eyes, couldn’t believe the PMs silence on the issue and further couldn’t believe that the Minister of Feelings Verna St Rose-Greaves, whom every one holds up as a bastion of activism and pro-femaledom, could be at the centre of such a shitstorm. Here was a pure case of bullying. There is no other word to describe what happened in Tower D that morning. Minister St. Rose Greaves, her Perm Sec and other state personnel basically played a game of circle the misfit and terrorise her. If it wasn’t for the outrage of her colleagues at work and eventually members of the wider public, Verna, Sandra Jones, and the Perm Sec from the Ministry of Health along with the people at St. Ann’s would have gotten away with one of the most blatant abuses of power that I’ve had the opportunity to read about in our local news. To date, the Minister refuses to give a comprehensive statement about what happened in her office under her watch that fateful morning. I wish Cheryl Miller all the luck in the world with her litigation against the state. And I still think that the Minister should make a jail!

I don’t think women have made any strides in the last 24 months under this regime. If anything, they’ve regressed horribly. Kamla hasn’t given anyone a reason to trust in female leadership. She struggles to look like a leader. Most days she looks fragile and sickly beyond belief while either lying or sidestepping the issues. There is no initiative taken under her government that is properly seeking the interest of women. Last year’s debate on the DNA Bill for instance, saw Herbert Volney take a stance so chauvinistic and medieval about rape victims that I was sure Volney was a character from the series A Game of Thrones. Volney was advocating violating the rape victim not once, but twice! And saw no problem with it. Come This Thursday May 24th, I feel certain that the PPG will blow it’s own horn about giving pregnant women an extra week of maternity leave….mind you, real first world nations like Norway and Sweden give either spouse as much as 2 years with full salary. But we not interested in being first world in Trinidad, just pantomiming it!
Under this government, there’s be no grounds for saying poom poom rule, and it’s the women in powers of position who are undermining their own selves.

De Vice Cyah Done!

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 23mts, 22dys: Pappy Shows and Fetes!

Posted on May 19, 2012 by The Pantomime

5 more days to the annual Eat Ah Food Fete at Rienzi and people still making up their mind if they should RSVP or not! While The Rani insisting that the Partnership “Stronger Than Ever!” Joseph Tony and David Abdullah not in the mood to parrrrtttyyy! And of course we boy Prakash aint going to miss an opportunity to be on his feet in front of a crowd paid to adore him, while they guzzle free food and drink…look out for his Baptist Minister impersonation. Tony, in trying to make Prakash’s adherence to camp Eat Ah Food look good trying to imply that Prakash might have something important to say at the Fete….in my experience, the only important things that does get said at fetes is Heh HAAAA! and Yeah Yeah! So, unless Prakash walking with HD and a Boddle of Rum, he have nothing important to say and the Eat Ah Food Fete is certainly not the venue!

PRakash has so squandered whatever good will he has with his party and this nation it not funny. Trust me Prakash, the only important thing you could have to say to this country cannot and shouldn’t be said on a Rienzi stage on May 24th. So the mere fact that you might be saying something important there at that time means, well, it not really important at all. A word to the wise…you getting little plump, watch how much of the UNC 2nds and 3rds you taking!

The next piece of mark that buss is that the issue of Vidwattie Newton’s role as travel assistant and unregistered nurse to the PM has gone before the Intergrity Commission. If I am not mistaken, this is the same Integrity Commission that the Prime Minister’s sister-in-law sits on, not so? So, is the PM’s sister-in-law going to recuse herself or remain and be a part of the entire process? Further, will Papa Ken Gordon, the chairman appointed by this government (and who, according to Devant has no common sense) be independent minded in his investigations? Is this investigation likely to be another Pappy Show on a grand scale? Is the box office selling tickets and pop corn? Coming soon to a tv near you folks, sit tight.

Then I see Harry Harnarine singing an aria at his Commission of Enquiry. According to Harnarine, the same man that answering questions for stealing and misallocating millions of Hindu Credit Union dollars, he and Mr Panday plotted the rise and fall of the COP at the 2007 elections. The story in today’s Express makes for riveting reading. Harnarine explains how he and former UNC Leader Panday lulled Dookeran into forming COP and then orchestrated the party’s loss at the 2007 elections. The COP’s Wikipedia page, apparently written by a founding member of the party gives a version that never mentions Harnarine’s name. The HCU building gets named though…so kudos to Harry. Now, Mr Harnarine, apart from being a perpertrator of fraud, a thug, a thief, a businessman, can add conspirator to his many lists of achievements. Look at that! Here’s a UNC member who doesn’t need to pad his resume to get a job!

There were two murders this week…but you won’t hear Kamla talk about that next week at the Eat Ah Food Fete. She’ll talk about 21st century policing, also known as police patrols in other sensible countries of the world. She’ll talk about the new anti-gang unit that has been set up, which used to be known as SAUTT under the PNM administration. But she won’t talk about how the figures are edging up steadily. She won’t talk about a daughter coming home from school to find her father tied up and dead in their family home, or a little boy of two being in his father’s arms while the Dad is shot dead! No, you don’t talk about those things when you wasting public money having a fete to celebrate 2 years of being in Government….not running a government….not practicing good governance…..just being in government…..this People’s Partnership aint beg it like to fete!

We have at least one piece of good news today. Cheryl Miller is back at work and suing the government for illegal detainment to the tune of TT$10m…..she deserves more than this, and I hope that she gets EVERY LAST CENT!

De Vice Cyah Done!

Anals of Achievement #6: Spin City

Posted on May 18, 2012 by The Pantomime

If in the last 23 months and 21 days your head spinning from the propaganda this government has been laying on in generous measures, you have company!

If Kamla, Dooks and Bhoe serious about diversifying the economy they can start exporting the BS PR that only they can do so well.

But I realise that this People’s Panchayat Govt have its own Coxford English Dictionary, and does make up new meanings for old and recognisable words as they go along, that puts their slavish supporters’ minds at ease, while leaving the rest of us baffled beyond belief.

Take for instance the move of key ministries to Chaguanas….Suruj Rambachan is calling it de-centralisation. Now, I understand de-centralisation to mean that you create satellite offices for major services in wider areas or remote areas, allowing a wider section of the population to be able to access goods and services without all having to converge in one space and cause congestion. Like how the passport office (under Immigration in the Ministry of National Security) functions. Instead, what the PP Government is proposing is a re-centralisation of Ministries, a movement of head quarters from the capital city to a borough. Rambachan claims this will bring services closer to the people….I guess the inhabitants of North-West Trinidad aren’t categorised as people. Why are whole ministries being moved as opposed to satellite offices being built? And why aren’t areas like North East Trinidad also being targeted for de-centralisation…..if is really de-centralisation that this government is doing?

Crime Plan is another word under this government that confuses me. When I hear crime plan I think a concerted effort encompassing sea, land and air; addressing the relationship between white collar and violent crime; and using a multi-pronged approach such as a partnership between community and state apparati to address the issues. But when the PPG talks about crime plan what it really means is a dismantling of all PNM infrastructure and a reassembling and re-naming of the old infrastructure. So, you get rid of the Blimp and rent a crop duster. You fire a local CoP who was ineffective and higher a foreign CoP, who equally ineffective and pay him more money to do nothing. You take old concepts like regular police patrols and give it jazzy titles like 21st Century Policing. You dismantle the SAUTT, and replace it with CGIU just because you can.

If you throw your mind back you’ll find even more clever uses of spin:

Credit Card Fraud – I did not abuse the Government Travel Card I merely spent and used it in ways that were inappropriate; but ignorance is my defence.

Nepotism – Good family values. Hire sisters, brothers, cousins, uncle, aunt and nennen. Put them in state positions and remind the country that you grow up in an extended family home and this is how things does operate…..House for Mr Biswas style!

Travel Assistant – Sister

Nurse – Sister

Qualifications – Common Sense and padded resumes.

Assassination Plot – Arrest 17 men who look muslim and apparently read brand new copies of Sun Tzu, Mein Kampf, the Qu’ran, Betty Crocker cook books and corn flakes boxes.

Lies – misspoke.

Faux Pas – Misstep

Ballsless – Prakash

Dangerous Dog – Anil!

It’s becoming scary, the way in which information is being gerrymandered and restructured to suit this government. And one has to wonder, since it’s patently clear that they have no interest in successfully running this country, what their agenda really is!

De Vice Cyah Done!

Anals of Achievement #7:Battered Wife Syndrome

Posted on May 17, 2012 by The Pantomime

This morning, between 6:30 and 7 am MP for Lopinot/Bon Air Lincoln Douglas was being interviewed on the i95.5 Morning Show. Hosts Tony Lee and Dale Enoch asked him how he felt about the entire COP executive council for his constituency resigning and threatening to join the UNC and his response was “Thank God.” Douglas then went on to clarify a few things and add some spice to the ever stewing pot that is local politics. Not all the people who walked were actually executive members. Many of the members of the executive actually held multiple party cards, he claimed. This implies that any threat on their part to join the UNC is actually moot because they may already be members. Which of course raises the question about whether the COP allows its members to belong to more than one party at a time…all this party hopping could be dangerous. Lincoln went even further to say that he believed that the COP was being destroyed from within the People’s Partnership and he went on to list a number of issues that alluded to Anil Roberts, attacks on Prakash Ramadhar and Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, the wooing of their members to serve as shadow MPs by the UNC and a general exclusion from coalition decisions.

Now, if you can throw your mind back to a minute ago….yes, it happened that recently….COP Leader Prakash Ramadhar and Joseph Toney were recently bitching about the bad treatment the party was receiving in the partnership. Even Vernon de Lima spoke out about the farce that is “collective responsibility” (the PM’s latest buzz word) and pointed out how Ramadhar is sometimes given as much as 5 minutes notice (he should be grateful, the country doesn’t get a heads up on any of the crap that’s done) before meetings. You will of course remember that much of the COP discontent within the Partnership overflowed when Marlene Coudray joined the UNC, became a part of their executive (which no COP member objected to) and took the Mayorship of San Fernando with her (which everybody’s panties were in a knot for). There were cries of abuse, much grandcharging that gave the impression that the COP might take up it’s 5/6 seats (where Anil?) and cross the floor. But eat ah food syndrome and flashing blue lights itis are hard diseases to treat, much less cure. And Ramadhar, after weeks of meetings and growling, eventually boiled down like young bhagee and tucked his tail between his legs, licked his mistresses hands obediently, announced that the Mayorship issue was a minor thing…let’s move on folks….No Dangerous Dog Act needed here. The COP seems to be very much in the UNC’s control and for all its complaints of abuse, all the COP will do is complain, it won’t leave, it won’t salvage its dignity and start its political life anew elsewhere. It going to stay and stick things out for the sake of the children, ent? And in any case, the man does only beat me because he love me so much….right?

The COP’s predicament reminds me of our larger issue here in Trinidad and Tobago. It seems that with each regime we can actually get worse. Williams ran the country from 1956-1981, during that time he met all kinds of opposition both within and without his party. By the end of the 70s, without the country knowing he was ailing, people were fed up of Williams, they wanted a change and Williams obliged and left…in a casket. Then George Chambers stepped in and the attitude of the country then was “we thought Williams was bad, but Chambers worse”…”Chambers duncy” became a popular phrase in the 80s and in truth, we couldn’t wait to get rid of the abusive and corrupt PNM…and so the party of parties was formed on a One Love Platform…the NAR, within a year and a half that coalition government experienced a split, Panday took his small goal side and crossed the floor into Opposition. The economic downturn in that post-boom era hit us so hard we hated Robinson; couldn’t wait to get rid of him, and Yasin Abu Bakr and 113 men thought they read the country’s signals right and sought to over throw the government. They tried, and failed, and Trinbagonians were traumatised by the attempted coup d’etat….be careful what you wish for you just might get it, eh.

It is argued in some circles that since that attempted coup in 1990 the crime situation here has steadily escalated. The NAR’s defeat saw an exhausted Trinbago falling back into the arms of her faithful and longterm lover, the PNM, this time under new management: an inexperienced and arrogant Patrick Manning. But Trinbago’s return to Mr PNM was bittersweet at best, because while Manning was young and new, the PNM old guard was still old guard and many of the policies that the country had come to detest as regards ethnic inclusion, transparency, corruption and public spending remained. Manning would prove to possess a level of gauchness and arrogance that would plague his entire political career as leader. Convinced that Trinbago must love him no matter what, he called an early election; and as soon as The Patrick’s back was turned counting votes, Trinbago ran off to another lover…..De Bas!

Trinbago had never had an Indian Leader in the saddle and she wondered what it would be like. She took the chance and was licks like fire and licks like peas from beginning to end. Yes, he did things for her, she got a new airport for instance….but it wasn’t properly built. He fed her, but with pet rice. All her children got to go to secondary school for free, but some of them ended up in classrooms over bars. And everytime she turned around her Basdeo was off on trips, and his friends would have their way with her, even taking money from her treasury. As bad as the treatment was though she remained of two minds in 2000 and 2001….two hung elections….but then eventually she get advised that she had to make a decision about who she was going to commit to, this limbo state didn’t bode well for her, the children or her treasury. Make your decision based on morals and values and so, in 2001 Trinbago decided that for all PNM bad ways, he at least had more principles than the UNC. She turn her back and went back to The Patrick.

And for 8 years Trinbago endure, the living was much better this time. More money was coming in, all kinds of nice building throwing up and the children in University for free. But when they get sick, if she aint have money for private hospital crapaud smoke she pipe, because the hospitals in a mess. Then she start to notice is all kind of people coming in her yard and settling just so, and like it have plenty drugs passing through her yard and at times plenty money that she can’t really account for passing through too…and when she ask questions either she getting boof or no answer. He friends doing as they please. It have work to do in the place and no work getting done. The money spending wild wild.Then Patrick start to travel plenty too, and it start to look like he wanted to dictate to she, and she start to get fed up bad bad bad because it look like she back in the same monkey pants. But she worried, because the only person waiting outside for she was the UNC and she remember the last time how things was under Basdeo. She don’t want that again either….what to do? What to do?

Then a new breeze start to blow…..change….she start to feel it….change. And she mind start to weigh and turn things over and Trinbago rouse sheself and decide to take a chance and she make the decision to move away from Patrick and Basdeo and try a woman…..

And to date her lesbian political experience has been the most abusive relationship ever!!!!!!

De Vice Cyah Done!

Anals of Achievement #8: Prostituting Our Values

Posted on May 16, 2012 by The Pantomime

Somewhere between 1995, the great Bas, creator of quotations and quips, coined the phrase “Politics has its own morality” and it seems that with each news cycle the People’s Partnership Government has taken it upon themselves to make that statement their mantra!

Much fanfare was made of the signing of the Fyzabad Accord because the then UNC was anxious to show the country that it wasn’t trying to get into government alone, it was doing so as part of a partnership that would keep each other in check. The UNC was only too aware of the impression it had left on the population after its first and only term in office that ran from 1995 into 2001, until President Robinson made that other historic statement and decision about morals and principles, that saw Patrick Manning’s PNM getting the edge over Basdeo Panday’s UNC after yet another hung election campaign.

During the intial 5-year term the country was treated to scandals involving:

Vasant Bharath’s shipments of pet rice, one that actually landed and the other that is apparently still lost at sea….maybe it’s in Davy Jones’ Locker;
Hansraj Soomairsingh’s (a local government councillor) body being found in a Mayaro Beach House;
Dhanraj Singh, Local Government Minister, who slapped an Assistant Police Commissioner in the face and was eventually arrested on 27 counts of corruption and murder.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s hurried implementation of secondary education for all that led to children being placed in rooms above bar and in windowless warehouses in downtown Port of Spain
Tim Goopeesingh’s alleged creation of ghost doctor gangs, misuse of public equipment and state funds.
The Airport fiasco involving Brian Kuei Tung, Ish Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson.
Corruption at Wasa that fingered Ganga Singh as being involved.
Large household expenses under Gary Griffith’s tenure as head of household.
An undisclosed London bank account in the name of Mr Panday’s wife, who seemed to be a housewife and a London apartment.

Frequent travel and shopping trips.

In light of the bitter aftertaste that these incidents left in the mouths of many citizens, the UNC realised that it would have to clean up its act. It did two things: got rid of Basdeo Panday as leader; and joined up with several other political entities that were not linked to corrupt governance the way the party was.

Under the guise of a partnership that would show collective responsibility for the country’s affairs they won a landslide victory and here is where the ole mas start!

The People’s Panchayat soon put in place a moral and value system that relied on unaccountability, opaqueness; blame-throwing or simply ignoring the issue until it goes away.

Right after election the PM moved into the house of the Gopaul’s, claiming that it was safe and easier for her to do so. It would turn out months later that this Gopaul family have more than Seepaul Luck…they have everybody luck because they were benefitting from large contracts from the government. When questioned about the rightness of her association with the family and their receiving of plum government contracts such as the Pt Fortin Highway, the PM, ever the woman of integrity, put in place a committee to oversee the granting of contracts. Then she made herself chairperson of the committee. Accountability and transparency in procurements accomplished!

Not a murmur was heard from any of the other members of the partnership!

The next scandal that would rock the government and the country was the appointment of Reshmi “Sashi Rekhma” Ramnarine, a junior clerk, to the position of Director of the SIA. Ramnarine’s appointment was approved by a Cabinet that consisted of Dookeran, Ramadhar and Errol McLeod (COP and MSJ members who the citizens of the country were convinced had principles and integrity). The appointment was also signed by acting President Timothy Hamel-Smith, yet another COP member who campaigned for good governance, accountability and transparency. When news of Ramnarine’s appointment broke John Sandy and Prakash Ramadhar took to their feet to defend Ramnarine’s appointment and to declare that she was suitably qualified to be the SIA Director. They even cited Ramnarine’s possession on a bachelor degree in IT from the UWI that Friday evening in Parliament. Only to have the mark buss the following week that Ramnarine had no such qualifications. Ramnarine would not be the first such state appointment to have no qualifications, yet be in receipt of a high paying public position. Eventually what would be revealed to the country is that qualifications are unnecessary for jobs under this regime….all that is required is common sense!

With mounting public protest over the appointment Ramnarine did the right thing and resigned. Then went into hiding, then changed her name, and as rumour has it, now works in a special security department set up within the Ministry of Education. Throughout the entire SIA/Ramnarine debacle not a word of condemnation was heard from the other members of the partnership. But Prakash Ramadhar, caught with his pants down, after blindly endorsing her in the Parliament would be quoted as saying in a post-cabinet interview, “I know not the woman.” It would be the start of his internship as a Baptist Minister.

There would be a virtual clusterfuck of scandals after the Reshmi Ramnarine Affair in December 2010. There was Mary King giving herself a contract from within her own ministry, there was Nizam Mohammed accusing the Police Service of ethnic disparity and racism, there was Sat Maharaj blatantly announcing on television that he had to fire a young On The Job trainee because her pantylines were visible. No member of the Partnership asked Maharaj why his eyes were on the young woman’s posterior; no member of the partnership came out and roundly condemned Mary King’s behaviour. What we got was a quick firing, even though King insisted that the PM knew that she was awarding contracts to herself; and a quick condemnation of Mohammed’s statement by the PM, but he was never fired for making what was clearly a racist and divisive statement.

But things started to pick up speed in August of 2011, and since then we’ve been on a fast track to a total prostitution of our value system. It’s almost as if the People’s Partnership has decided to ass with what the country thinks, we here for one term and we will do as we like. I can’t possibly think that anyone in this government expecting a second term.

The SOE occurred with the full support of the Partnership, to date we have no idea what the clear and present danger we were avoiding by suspending constitutional rights and shutting the country down for 107 days were. There was talk of gang warfare between Trinidad and Columbia, that never happened.

Then we heard that Beetham residents had an underground diesel bunker and cache of guns…..to date there were no guns under Beetham and the diesel bunkering was being done by people who definitely don’t live in the Beetham. I think TV6 journalist Mark Bassant found a number of them in south Trinidad.

Not a word from the partnership against the SOE, in fact they rose to their feet as one for 3 days in Parliament to support it as a worthy cause.

The PM claimed there was an assassination plot against her, had 17 men arrested and at the end of the SoE there was no evidence of a plot to assassinate her, no evidence of anything at all….just a false alarm and a hoax. By December 2011 it became pretty clear that Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer and Tom Clancy were writing the PR for this government. We were Clear and Present Danger meets Pirates of the Caribbean going down a road that was Too Fast and Too Furious!

January 2012 saw Gibbs appointment as Police Commissioner, the Crop Duster Plane Rental for $.9m, the $800m trip to India that we paid for, Kamla’s sister as paid travel assistant, Kamla’s family living in the PM’s residence, the AG hiring his nephew as his personal assistant, the Minister of Transport hiring the Minister of Finance’s cousin as chairman of the board to the state airline and insisting that airline experience was needed, just common sense. We have had past chairman of T&TEC resign because it was discovered that he had 2 fake degrees on his resume. Two ministers abused the Government Travel Card to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars and then said they did nothing wrong. One minister refused to apologise!

The list goes on and there are too many to get into. What remains constant is that the other member of the Partnership either remain mum on these issues, excuse them or turn a blind eye. The COP only finds its voice when it is being denied plum government positions, a la Marlene Coudray. Suruj Rambachan has described the Prime Minister’s blatant nepotism as good family values. Whenever the Prime Minister lies, it’s now called misspeaking, or a misstep. If the PM get’s caught in a lie she doesn’t apologise for it, she merely brushes it off by saying she was advised. In short, it’s not her fault she lied, it’s the adviser’s fault. And so, she doesn’t have to apologise….because to apologise is to admit guilt…and this government is guilty of nothing except loving this country until it hurts!

De Vice Cyah Done!

The Eternal Pantomime

One woman's take on the politics and culture of Trinidad and Tobago

Monthly Archives: May 2012

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs 4dys: Parasitic Relationships

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs, 2dys: A Right Royal Mess!

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 2yrs, 1 day: Going for Shock Value

730 ways to please your man in bed….or 2 years of being screwed by the PPG!

The Old She Fox!

Anals of Achievement #5: The Wussified Vagenda

Crime Clusterf@$k/Political Pantomime 23mts, 22dys: Pappy Shows and Fetes!

Anals of Achievement #6: Spin City

Anals of Achievement #7:Battered Wife Syndrome

Anals of Achievement #8: Prostituting Our Values

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