Sunday, September 25, 2011

Back to Gene Miles: Corrupt Trinidad and Tobago- My column 20 September 2011

After Gene Miles, the modern design of governance is for the political financiers to take a first charge on the Treasury and for public officials to enforce the lien. Read the Hansard and Budget speeches in particular, every page promises to bring law and order; to make things better and to allocate blame to the other side. Licensing office remains non-collared, its propensity for corruption merely a parcelling of the fat to feed the epaulettes. And there are more epaulettes feeding at the country's gates, people and cargo, going and coming, paying and promising to pay. Foreign sex workers are hounded out of the bawdy houses but nobody checks the boudoir for customs and immigration laundry. With reckless indifference there's always one for the master, one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Masters, dames and little boys associated with the main parties in the Parliament are fighting civil and criminal battles for services rendered. Former ministers are charged and acquitted. Persons placed in significant state positions operate under various questions. Each one proceeding until apprehended. In 2009 journalist Clint Chan Tack detailed the corruption, citing parts of Ryan's work, Eric Williams: The Myth and the Man, asking how much Williams knew.

To find the root of criminality Prof Ryan must revisit Williams, the earliest purveyor of Teflon coats for public office holders. And he must examine the consequences of the State's own breakaway from the fundamentals of law and order, the emergence of parallel rules, organisations and expectations in and of public office and the vagaries of madam justice, more blindsided than blindfolded. He must ask about slush accounts, hush-money for thieves and chile-mothers and State-operated treasure troves, each ostensibly ring-fenced by Corporation Sole. More hush money is promised by the Prime Minister.

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