Sugar Aloes sings "She's Royal" but: We ent arrive as yet

Calypsonian Sugar Aloes

As we head into Indian Arrival Day, the anniversary celebration of the People's Partnership Government led through inadvertence to this column. The surprise performance by calypsonian Sugar Aloes at the event is the only thing most people will remember. And thereafter, Aloes's appearance, choice of song and its political significance became too important to ignore.

His appearance was bittersweet. On one hand I appreciate the potential of a hardcore PNM supporter performing in celebration of two years of the PNM going into opposition. It suggests that even the centre of the parochial camps is not impenetrable and the middle ground could swell even more than the current divide causes us to believe.

But as Chalkdust would say, Aloes did not perform just so. Aloes's performance may be further evidence of the way the politics consolidates the spoils of victory in the hands of those on one side, leaving the other largely empty-handed. The question in Aloes's appearance and performance was whether we witnessed the maturity of a seasoned political commentator or a desperate act of survival for an entertainer-turned-businessman, a man in need of Partnership handouts in the absence of politically-neutral alternatives.

And if Aloes was on a Partnership platform as part of a tour to get State support for the Revue calypso tent, it is also evidence of how we have mistreated the arts, principally everything related to Carnival. Without shame the National Carnival Commission (NCC) is nowhere near the three core elements of its legislative purpose, as a result of which the so-called greatest show on earth is demonstratively indigent.

This is of course unfortunate for both Aloes and the country but not unexpected. The matter of the funding, support and survival of Aloes's Revue tent should not be in the lap of the country's Minister of Housing and the Environment. It belongs to an independent authority which manages the country's arts and its Carnival. But the way it has gone, every facet of arts, culture and creativity make the trek cap-in-hand to whoever is in power begging their way to political handouts.

Aunty Joan gone and Uncle Rudy take over.

Too much corruption: Catch me if you can

Welcome to the land of sun, sea and no consequences. As we move to acquire more prison space, not one politician or high-profile crook occupies existing jailhouse real estate. Crafty lawyers and their crooked clients have combined to permanently engage the pause button. Justice delayed is punishment denied; a fiat to the well-positioned to thief even more.

There is no shortage of evidence of how the rot set in and stayed in. It’s the same coming out of the commissions, media stories and revelations in Parliament and official reports like the latest from the Auditor General. There is little accountability, responsibility, responsible leadership and enforcement.

The tone for neglect is at the top. The law is porous and wherever it has bite it meanders disgracefully. The politicians are unreliable. The Prime Minister casually taps the still-investigated and disgraced ex-FIFA vice president to perform the duties of PM. Without question, His Excellency makes the appointment. Former president Arthur NR Robinson may be maligned but at least he risked controversy in the 18-18 scenario and his refusal of Panday’s nominees for the Senate.

Alongside the CL Financial and HCU stories of poor governance, directors and officers of incalculable ineptitude, downright theft, thuggery and bobol comes the latest Auditor General’s report of the persistent lack of accountability in the State, especially in relation to contracts of employment, salaries, contracts with suppliers and verification of assets and inventory.

Again the tone should be set at the top. Amongst the ministries failing to provide critical reports on a timely basis or at all, many are headed by senior People’s Partnership Ministers. It includes the Ministries of the Attorney General, Housing, Foreign Affairs, Public Utilities, Works, Local Government and the Office of the Prime Minister. Failure to provide these reports is contrary to law but who cares.

False advertising: Making it real

In one story last week a Law Association audit found that executives routinely signed cheques without the trouble of authentication. In another, Independent Senator Subhas Ramkhelawan called for legislation to deal with miracle healers. Both stories deal with leading professions and the risks of quacks and invalids.
In the Senate, Mr Ramkhelawan suggested that legislation to outlaw advertising of miracle cures should be brought to Parliament to deal with the problem of false advertising by conmen. What he did not say was that some of these conmen were professionals themselves, trading way beyond their qualifications, skills and competence.

There are two main points on the Senator's complaint. First the problem is not absence of legislation but the failure to enforce what exists. And second, the Senator's comments should also be directed to all professional bodies whose members offer both products and services beyond their expertise.

Ultimately, whether it's the problems facing the Medical Board, Law Association or another professional body, it involves professional standards and professionalism; consumer rights, protection and the opportunities for affordable and accessible services; the challenges and dangers of the self-regulation of professionals and the need to end elitism and create transparency within professional bodies.

Of course Ramkhelawan's complaint is well founded. Who has not encountered a self-proclaimed "dentist" providing extractions, fillings and other regulated dental services? It is not unusual for people like to this to be called "doc" in the rush, a moniker not resisted. Bush lawyers require no introduction.

And the complaint could go a little deeper into the offer for sale of "health" and "weight loss" products and programmes, sexual performance aids and "enhancers", "energy" drinks and products, and the services of fortune-telling, palm readings, obeah and exorcism.

More coalition problems: COP in a corner

Political twister is the best way to describe the Congress of the People (COP). Trapped in a UNC-dominated world, the party wishes to speak for party, People's Partnership and country, and emerge intact from the political snake-pit. Unless it gets a grip, the COP will be a collection of the pathetic.

In its latest statement the COP's political leader speaks for four different and competing interests: the COP, the People's Partnership, the Government and the people. The statement sets the bar high and declares the COP an independent political party which will articulate independent positions on policy matters.

It refers to collective responsibility, managing the coalition partners and strengthening the structures required to deliver more effectively and equitably to the population. For good measure it affirms a commitment to working for redefinition of the political and governance arrangements and declares maximum leadership by decree to be over.

Except, of course, the COP failed to get its way on the single issue of removing the Mayor of San Fernando simply because the party lacks the leverage. The COP owes its so-called "political assets" to the aforesaid maximum leadership exercised by the PM — the UNC political leader and de-facto coalition leader. The COP also owes its position in Government and Cabinet, and its Senate and board appointments to the PM. On its current trajectory, the party's political future relies on the fortunes of the UNC-led People's Partnership and if the City of San Fernando mayoral issue is any guide, the COP should make no boast of its powers of persuasion or otherwise.

What the difficulties facing the COP and the country demonstrate is that two years after its election the core remains rotten under the People's Partnership. The framework of the politics is broken, cracked by corrupt political party funding, loosened by lackeys and minions and undermined by cronyism and get-rich-quick political toddlers. Caught between this idea of a chief whip and the doctrine of collective responsibility, group-think is the political standard. But group-think led by non-thinkers is far more dangerous to democracy than all the arms and ammo floating around the country in fidgety hands.

Terminating the Privy Coucil: Surrender to silliness

UK Privy Council's Lord Justice Phillips

 Making the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the country's final appellate court should require no justification. But the PM's statement in support of that move is more debatable than the CCJ itself.
Offered as a celebration of 50 years of independence, the PM's statement on the CCJ fails to recognise the true celebration of self-determination is not the substitution of the country's final appellate court. It will be the crafting of a constitution which upholds the values of the society, a matter which the PM happened to ignore.

After Pratt and Morgan, the former colonies were handed the challenge of defining their independence by reshaping and rewriting their constitutions. Instead they succumbed to the usual inertia, head-scratching, finger-pointing and inaction which are central to the post-independence experience. Ultimately Pratt and Morgan, the death penalty dilemma and the persistent crime are indicative of the inability to handle the tools of independence.

In selecting criminal appeals for the initial phase the PM offers the weakest justification for retaining the Privy Council for civil appeals, a move which confirms our penchant for anything half-made. Second, the substitution of an appellate court as a means of side-stepping sensible data on the futility of the death penalty is not an affirmation of independence but the surrender to silliness.

In retaining the Privy Council for civil appeals the PM has said that "it inspires confidence in foreign investors'' and its retention is conducive to an investor-friendly climate. The PM has offered no evidence of a link between the final appellate court, commercial certainty and attracting foreign investment. It is a weak argument which ignores the commercial reality that foreign investors enjoy significant legal certainty through the international arbitration clauses which are standard in commercial contracts.

When you consider the parts of the world which have attracted significant foreign investment and the political and judicial uncertainties in those places, the suggestion that judicial certainty is a critical element of foreign investment is unsupportable. Venezuela is an example of the risks foreign investors will take, especially the risk of expropriation, nationalisation and loss of shareholder value if the investment conditions are favourable. The PM should be more concerned about competitiveness and the creation of an attractive climate than with the significance of a final appellate court to investors.

On the substitution of the Privy Council, the PM has highlighted the need to "overcome the hindrances to the implementation of the death penalty arising out of various Privy Council decisions''. But the problems go deeper than the Privy Council. They are localised, spread over the post-independence period and embody a failure of political leadership.

The fact is that the Privy Council has not imposed its will on the country. It has applied its craft to the constitutions it has been handed to interpret and has come to conclusions which are no different for T&T when compared to the countries which have the cruel and inhumane provision in their constitutions.

Where news, drama, $$ flow
In contrasting circumstances the past week brought attention again to the media's role in keeping the public informed.Trinidad saw the clumsy arrest of a prime-time television personality in an industry pushing edginess and innovation. In the US, a Trinidad-born newspaper editor defended a decision to publish two photos in defiance of the Pentagon.

Both cases highlight the challenge of staying within the law, taste and decency while keeping the public informed.

In Los Angeles Davan Maharaj, the former Express journalist, explained the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish two of 18 particularly graphic photographs. Both showed that a unit of the US military's 82nd Airborne Division posed with body parts, the remains of Afghan bombers.

By comparison the local arrest was in respect of material allegedly broadcast in breach of the Sexual Offences Act (SOA). The October 2011 broadcast was in the usual sensational manner of the prime-time programme styled as a watch on crime and crime-fighting. But unlike the publication of the photos by the Times which involved an editorial judgment of the right of the public to be informed, the local broadcast is being impugned as a breach of the SOA which carries criminal liability.

According to Maharaj, the Times felt that the public interest was served by publishing a limited, but representative sample of the photos, along with a story explaining the circumstances under which they were taken. The newspaper believed the photos provided by a member of the military unit "reflected dysfunction, indiscipline and a breakdown in leadership that compromised the safety of the troops." And the newspaper believed the public had a right to be informed.

It is clear that both cases are about the modern technology-driven and profit-centred media enterprise; the push to edginess and innovation and the challenge of keeping all of it within the law, taste and decency.

Failing the little ones

There were warning signs all around little Aliyah. But trapped in her mother's random life and surrounded by indifference, her little life was too fragile to withstand the consequences.

 As a father each death brings fresh agony. I understand the trust the little ones place in adults. I appreciate the way their little fingers curl around mine, confirmation of their expectation of protection and comfort. In each death, I see the unmistakeable indifference of adults who have forgotten to care: politicians because they don't use their power and the rest of us because we do not take a personal interest in demanding better.

In the week when the deaths of Aliyah and the Freeport pensioner brought grief to many of us, I observed the antics of the country's Minister of Justice. I need not say more about the former judge's comments on the killing of a constituent. The Express, through its Sunday editorial and Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal's column, has detailed the dangers of the Minister's comments. What I found interesting is that the Minister — father, lawyer, former judge and the holder of a political portfolio with enormous responsibility for life and security — has said nothing about these other killings. Like others, this Minister of Justice, always quick to remind people of the sacrifice of his tax-free judicial package for public service, is looking after his business.

Which brings me ask what can we construct in quick time to deal with this indifference and inconsequence which has taken over? What can cure this ailment and restore our sense of personal responsibility? Various accounts of the adults in Aliyah's life suggest drunkenness, mishandling of the toddler, abuse and violence: the usual Molotov cocktail of poverty and inconsequence. In little Amy's death the forensic report told a more brutal story: ruptured liver and spleen, abrasions in her mouth and cigarette burns about her body, and physical evidence of rape and sodomy. Amy's life was like the other children who ended up murdered: violence, tears and painful physical abuse and injury.

My conclusion is that what we discarded as macocious and meddlesome, the rest of the world still calls informed and community-minded. We armed ourselves with indifference and have watched the decay and decline. And when death or incident comes along to touch us personally, we go in search of somebody to blame. Nobody wants to get involved even though a little meddling could save lives and bring justice.

Conflict in the People's Partnership: COP coalition muscle

Congress of the Lent People Leader Prakash Ramadhar

Lent is over and like the Congress of the People (COP) we going down San Fernando. The issue is settled. The COP has scored a rare victory within the People's Partnership and the embattled mayor will move to safer ground. Still this was an odd squabble. It revealed the crassness of our politics, the Partnership's grab for power and the challenges of holding on to it.

Like Calypso Rose in 1977, Port of Spain was too jammed for the COP leader's comfort and San Fernando offered more leg-room. But the oddity of the squabble started with the COP leader describing the San Fernando Mayor's position as part of the "assets of the COP".

Rod Blagogevich

Apparently in the Fyzabad carve-up, that elected office was parceled out to the COP, an affront to the city's 1996 Standing Orders. Back-office deals involving public office and the insistence on them as matters of contract are repulsive to good governance. They are no different in character from the attempt to sell Obama's former US senate seat, for which Rod Blagogevich will spend 14 years in prison.

Mayor of the City of San Fernando Marlene Coudray

Even before the Coudray-crossover the COP had plenty philosophical ground to challenge its co-parties in the Partnership. Only on rare occasions the party's leadership raised its voice. Even when the party questioned the Government, the COP MPs remained silent or sided with the Government. Some of that was a consequence of collective responsibility, but much of it was self-preservation. Maybe in the COP back-office there is still a party which is distinguishable from its UNC parent, but in Government the COP has morphed.

Much of the COP's concessions of character are rooted in the 2007 failure to land a seat. With impatience for power, in 2010 the COP mapped a shortcut. And as with shortcuts the party's current coordinates suggest that it is lost. The party will be challenged to identify a single slice of progress the Partnership government has made or embarked upon, notwithstanding a brazen State of Emergency, a curfew and billions already spent. The party will also find the same-old, same-old political playbook inconsistent with its self-styled new politics.

Jobs for the boys: It's all about swing time

In what Attorney General Anand Ramlogan once called the pendulum swing, the country's leading State companies have new presidents. Whatever the merits of these appointments, there are sensible questions to be asked. And since answers are not usually forthcoming, it is on bare politics and ethnicity that the National Gas Company (NGC) and Petrotrin appointments will end up being judged.

For some observers, the Petrotrin and NGC appointments fit neatly with one of the AG's pet subjects — ethnic imbalance within the State. In a November 2009 commentary titled "Qualified but rejected", Ramlogan considered the restocking of the State-owned sector from the ethnic pool of victorious parties and cited research by Richard Thomas. Thomas had looked at 295 persons in what was described as the "top ranks" of 17 State entities and found 60 "Indos", as Thomas and Ramlogan described the ethnic group.

Petrotrin and NGC were amongst the 17, as were the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (AATT), Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC).
In his commentary Ramlogan concluded that the "statistics provide irrefutable evidence about the exclusion of Indo-Trinis from state corporations." He also noted that "the figures are probably no different in the foreign service, security service and public service in general. The reverse is probably true when the UNC was in power. The pendulum swung from one corner to the next. Can we ever realise that elusive dream of equality and meritocracy?"

On that issue of meritocracy the NGC appointment raises a few questions. With the push to replace senior executives at 60, the country has fallen victim to discriminatory fixed retirement ages, denying itself talent at its best. It appears that meritocracy disappears at this pre-determined age and change is forced. Second, even within these well-appointed boardrooms there is no succession planning. With each pendulum swing organisations are put at the mercy of political doodling. Third, NGC's chairman makes a valid point about leadership differences with and without foreign "head office" support. But it is because an NGC president does not have foreign "head office" support, that person must meet specific criteria. An NGC president must have deep executive expertise; well-established relationships with and the high regard of local and other gas-industry executives; and an ability to command the fortunes of the gas company in a challenging global and industry space.

Government trapped on the back foot:Tackle the blockages
An Express editorial's portrayal of the People's Partnership governing from its back foot reminded me of the lead-up to the 1986 distress which produced "Vote Dem Out". In the calypso Tyrone "Deple" Hernandez chronicled what puts governments first on the back foot and then on the backside. If the Partnership lets itself get to that point, not even a million-dollar elevator will lift it.

Challenged from its decision to place a sitting judge in a safe political seat, the Partnership has been hemmed-in and probed since. But it is more important that the Partnership is not trapped by ideological or any differences with the country or itself. It is trapped in its own rhetoric, captured in a compact made in pursuit of power and quickly abandoned. Problems have followed.

Inside the trouble, the Partnership needs to listen for words and expressions which allowed Deple's "Vote Dem Out" to find comfortable space in the minds of the 1986 electorate, some voting outside their traditional parties for the first and last time. Words and expressions like government in "doubt" and "full of mouth"; "promising roads and giving you potholes"; unable to "cope"; "policies and fallacies"; "frustration"; "misuse" and "thief out" of resources; "avarice" and "pappyshow".

Of course it is an unfortunate reality of the politics that governments remain accountable for every blocked drain, artery and promotion. In fact as a measure of electability, political parties tout their expertise in solving every problem of every community, only to be trapped on the back foot by their inability to resolve them.

As it is, the country does not make frivolous and emotive demands on the Partnership but shows up at the seat of Government every day, foraging for signs of a forward-agenda. When the country shows up, what it finds is a similarity, already well-understood and written-up. It demonstrates the failure of the Partnership and a line of political parties to produce a design for the future which replaces politics with policy and people.

The Prime Minister takes her sister on her trips abroad: Boarding pass

After a business/shopping trip, Trinidad & Tobago's Prime Minister sits in a National Security helicopter routinely used to shuttle the PM

Given the pattern of entitlement, the Prime Minister has set the tone for ministerial office to be treated like private estate, one faux-pas at a time. It's a mockery of the Salaries Review Commission (SRC) or at least the reason for it. The message is that politics is still the easiest way to get rich. To keep track, somebody better write all the PM's family name on a piece of paper for me.

In decision-making, a decided trait of the PM is to place personal preference ahead of objective factors, like law and principle. Those relationship-based decisions which stand out are the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) appointment; "temporary" appointments to the CEO positions at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) and Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG); veto of the nominee to head the Financial Investigations Unit and insistence on a personal choice; "temporary" appointments at various State entities; and diplomatic appointments now becoming controversial.

Nearly two years after the fact, the country finally considers the implications of Kardashian-style spending on the PM's travel and lifestyle choices. Cost and nepotism are obvious, but emasculation of the SRC and disregard for the tone at the top will hurt the PM.This may be dismissed as a minor issue in the scheme of things, but the immediate danger is that the PM is countering the institutions set up to prevent office-holders from fixing their own perquisites or expanding them. Top-Up Toppin and FuadCard are just following the PM's lead.

More will come to light.

Problems for the Commissioner of Police: After Gibbs goes

Trinidad & Tobago's Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs

Inevitably Dwayne Gibbs discovers that these islands are about sun, sand and scapegoats. As we say, his shot call but with a generous termination Gibbs will discover that we treat mediocrity well. It is class and excellence that we punish.

In July 2010, when the $100 million and five-year process led to Gibbs's name as the Commissioner of Police, the Partnership Government made two things clear to Parliament. First, in proposing Gibbs the Government was not suggesting that "someone from Canada is better trained, better exposed, has more university qualifications than the local". Second, the Government could not "bring a commissioner of police here and indicate to him that he has six months or a year to make a dent in crime and we have not been able to do it for ten years''. The Government did not think it could "ask a new commissioner to come and solve the problem in one year. It does not work like that. You have to give the person adequate time and resources''.

On the first point, to be proposed Gibbs must have been found to be more suitable than nationals who had applied. And on the second, far from giving Gibbs time, the inconvenient truth is that political quick-fixes and long-term crime-fighting strategy are incompatible. In politics, 20 months is too long and after a State of Emergency and curfew, firing the Commissioner is the next quick-fix.

What works for the Government is that the country has seen the inevitable result of the thinness of Gibbs's resume, which those who selected and appointed him managed to overlook. In proposing Gibbs to the Parliament, the Government used the words "involved" and "training" to describe Gibbs's experience. Absent were the words "leadership", "expertise" and "command".

No difference in the politics: In the same boat

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Leader of the Opposition Dr. Keith Rowley

The party Leader of the Opposition Dr. Keith Rowley described in his no-confidence motion against the PM and her People’s Partnership sounded too much like his own PNM. And as Rowley inadvertently put the PNM’s record in office under scrutiny once again, the result remained unflattering. The PM will live on, not because her Government is better, but because the PNM’s was much worse. The unfortunate reality of Dr Rowley’s no-confidence motion is that the country is caught in the middle — between the PNM's defence of a term that ended in scandal and the People’s Partnership which is habitually prone to misfeasance.

The gist of Rowley’s complaint was that an unending series of events has demonstrated a lack of confidence in the PM. His words suggested “gross incompetence”, “failure”, “unwillingness to act”, “absence of effective management”, “persistent confusion”, “encouragement of wrongdoing” and “concern and lack of confidence”. Those words describe any week in local politics over the last 20 years of PNM and UNC/Partnership governance. And there was little chance that Dr Rowley would succeed with a comparison of the PNM’s eight years between 2002 and 2010 and the People’s Partnership’s 22 months.

An example of the problem with Dr Rowley’s tenuous line of attack was his response to the ministerial appointment of Dr Tewarie. His admonition that a good leader would be judged by the choices he makes quickly came back to haunt him, opening for consideration his own selection of a former CLICO Investment Bank (CIB) board member as a PNM senator. What has emerged so far from the public examination of CLICO’s affairs is that CIB had a pivotal role in the questionable loans and shoddy financial management which sent the Duprey empire cap in hand to the taxpayer.

Dr Rowley has uncharacteristically not considered his party’s situation, unless of course he has already been seduced by “do as I say but not as I do”.

Chairman of the Integrity Commission, Kenneth Gordon

Fixing the Integrity Commission:Integrating integrity

Let's face it: private sector bribes corrupt the public sector. To reduce corruption the private and public sectors must be scrutinised but this is not something the current Integrity Commission (IC) can do. The country needs more than five individuals and 4,000 forms annually to shake off this reputation for corruption.

The irony is that even with the country’s growing reputation for corruption, the IC is notorious for commess. That’s tragedy when you think about the IC’s dual legal responsibility for oversight of persons in public life and private persons interfacing with public bodies.

The IC is better known for its lens into public offices. But it can also investigate private behaviour which may constitute criminal offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA). Through this non-exclusive power under POCA, the IC can reach into the private sector and private interests. A widening of that power and the review of POCA and the nature of the IC are needed.

This need to hold the private sector accountable is obvious. The biggest challenge to integrity in public life is its collision with corrupt or corrupting elements from the private sector. It is difficult to speak about integrity in public life without enforcing ethical behaviour amongst private interests. But to shift the culture and the way business is done, the IC needs help.

Whitney's bittersweet song

At the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney had one last amazing performance left. As she serenaded herself out of her childhood church, her lyrics described her time with us. And as the last of the physical Whitney was carried out, the eternal Whitney carried on: "Bittersweet memories that is all I'm taking with me." It is also what she left behind for us to resolve.

Whitney's life and unexplained death is another chance to consider how we create celebrity but bring it down, flaw by flaw. We applaud as they play dress-up and then strip-search their character, analysing every flaw while still consuming the talent.

Whitney resurfaces the battle between the way media and round-the-clock information broadcast create celebrity and the consequences when all that glitters is not gold. In the hands of bandwidth, celebrity can quickly turn to notoriety. On the one hand Whitney permits us to reconsider what has to be said and what is better left alone. On the other hand no one owns the responsibility for that judgment and if news travels fast, bad news has greater momentum.

In Whitney's life and death, there are remaining comparisons, local analogies and moments for introspection. Whitney's artistic success came out of a world where quality was gauged by record and ticket sales and earnings.

Trinidad & Tobago's Attorney General Anand Ramlogan

Helping Anand look back

The idiom "to be forewarned is to be forearmed" is known to the two silks at the head of the Government. But three weeks proved insufficient warning for the PM and AG to stall the AG's Anti-Corruption Investigative Bureau (ACIB) in its search for the journalist's confidential source. Contrary to what the AG describes as a "sudden, unexplained dramatic execution of a search warrant on the Newsday newspaper and the home of political journalist Andre Bagoo", the stage was set three weeks before. If they wished to act, the two silks could have intervened but chose not to.

In those three weeks, the PM and the AG, now stoic in defence of journalists and press freedom, may have discussed the matter with the Commissioner of Police. Except of course, the AG knows better than anyone else that the ACIB functions under the office of the AG and not the Commissioner.

After John Jeremie's May 2009 return for a second stint as AG, Ramlogan described the ACIB in his newspaper column as the AG's "private police army that can secretly do the bidding of the party in power" and wrote "the Anti-Corruption Bureau takes its orders from and reports directly to the AG."

Having made no change to the ACIB since assuming office, it is difficult for the AG to support his statement that the ACIB is now "on paper" listed under the portfolio of the AG but over which he has no jurisdiction. Unless this ACIB and Jeremie's ACIB are two different outfits, the ACIB is the business of the AG.

In fact weeks into his appointment the AG put his "private police army" into action without mentioning the Commissioner or other legal authority for the use of the ACIB. In August 2010 he announced his A-Team to investigate corruption in state companies. And he announced the ACIB's involvement: "These investigative works...will be conducted in consultation and collaboration and in conjunction with the ACIB."

Until now the AG has never linked the ACIB to the Commissioner or other supervisory authority. And in his announcement he never mentioned that the Commissioner had sanctioned the ACIB's involvement in the investigative work of his A-Team. What was clear from that announcement is the AG's hand-picked A-Team and ACIB's involvement was the work of the AG, entirely.

Crime scene confusion

Jack Ewatski

It was just a really bad week for Jack. Ewatski, that is. The former Winnipeg police commissioner found out Trini-style that nothing makes noise like competing suppliers, competing politicians and the glancing chance of bobol. And while the country debated the technical details of Jack's aircraft, his conduct is proof of bureaucratic fragmentation in the fight against the crime and social decay generated by the last 20 years of PNM and UNC politics.

Once the PM and National Security Minister believed themselves to be a safe distance from Jack's aircraft, both lapped up Donna Cox's revelations on Jack's embryonic flying squad. But then Cox went one step further and used Jack's bad idea to justify an even worse one: the PNM blimp. And just like every other time in the past 20 years of PNM versus UNC politics, Cox ignored the fact that the country finds itself dealing with insurmountable crime and social decay made worse by the PNM's failure to deal with the root causes between 2002 and 2010 and before that.

Of course heightened crime and corruption were reasons the PNM was booted out in 2010, and the People's Partnership put in. But the replacement of the PNM by the People's Partnership does not reduce the complicity of the PNM in the crisis either created or perpetuated during the party's periods in Government. Even as Cox and other PNM MPs and supporters go about their jobs of criticising the People's Partnership Government, they could also drop the sanctimonious attitude which got the country into the deep end in the first place. If the People's Partnership failure to do any better than the PNM upsets the country, then the PNM's refusal to acknowledge its horrible performance on crime is aggravating. And this is why Ewatski's flying squad revelation has led us to see the greatest danger to the country on this crime issue.

Trinidad & Tobago politics: Jack Warner's shrinking duties

Trinidad and Tobago's PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Minister Jack Warner

Twenty months after vaulting Kamla Persad-Bissessar into the Prime Minister's seat, Jack Warner has been stripped of responsibility for the billion-dollar highway to Point Fortin. Until further notice Warner is "Minister of a piece of Works". Having had transport excised from his portfolio and the multi-million dollar PURE project shut down, Warner, once queen-maker and de-facto PM, is neither.

A post-Carnival showdown between Warner and his political leader could be another distraction from the major issues requiring full political attention. It is all driven by a temporariness which has marked the PM's 20 months and counting.

Apart from still-steady crime and social decline, the PM has an economy that has failed to grow since 2008. In his January 16 update on the economy the Governor of the Central Bank pointed to economic contraction in 2011, output declines in energy and non-energy and rising food prices which could quickly fuel inflation. Beyond the high level data businessmen are complaining about the lethargy of the economy and the failure of the Government to provoke and provide the circumstances for growth.

This is not accidental but indicative of the fact that the PM has not set her thoughts on the tone of her leadership and the engagement which would stir the society. Instead her Government has riled opinion and eroded goodwill. The task of the PM should have been threefold: stabilising, changing and sustaining. Where she has placed her Government is in a constant state of defence and uncertainty. It is not insignificant that her frequent travel, her failure to occupy the PM's residence and the constant presence of handlers around her is increasingly suggestive of her own temporariness, discomfort and lack of confidence outside her happy zone.

Source of trouble

"We living in jail, we living in jail''. Sing Penguin's 1984 calypso as AG Ramlogan's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) demands from Newsday's Andre Bagoo his source for the story on feuding between the Integrity Commission's Ken Gordon and Gladys Gafoor. If the ACB gets the information from Bagoo without judicial intervention and a constitutional battle, then as Penguin said in 1984 "freedom gone clean out of we control".
If the State of Emergency picked fundamental rights from the country's back pockets, the AG's ACB reaches in a more bold-faced manner into the front pocket of our journalists. The ACB's request contradicts the PM's philosophy on confidential sources and whistleblowers and, in line with other Commonwealth decisions, the local court will erect the constitutional fence which protects Bagoo, his sources and his profession.

This is of course what we expect given the PM's philosophy on whistleblowers and confidential sources. Speaking in Parliament in April 2009 on the PNM government's proposal to require a person making a complaint against someone in public life or any person exercising a public function, to do so by swearing a statutory declaration MP Persad-Bissessar correctly characterised the change as oppressive, onerous and intended to hinder the man-in-the-street from making complaints.

MP Persad-Bissessar described whistle-blowing protection as very important and supported systems for protecting public servants and private citizens who in good faith report acts of corruption. Whistleblowers and other confidential sources under the integrity legislation are no different from the confidential sources journalists and police officers use to defend and promote the public's interests.

MP Persad-Bissessar's philosophy is consistent with the Dodd-Frank-type legislation which is likely to be pervasive in a post-Madoff, post-Stanford and post-CLICO era, promoting whistle-blowing for reward while balancing private and public interests.

On board with Bhoe

Academics are usually said to have more book sense than common sense. By his own admission Bhoe Tewarie left both outside the CL Financial boardroom for 15 years. In that time he served on other boards, headed the UWI's local graduate school of business, headed the UWI local campus and then inaugurated the UWI's Centre for Critical Thinking.

Bhoe's ambiguity in dealing with CL Financial may end up as a footnote in the CL Financial's meltdown, but he is now Minister of Planning and the Economy. And having overlooked, ignored or not ever known corporate governance fundamentals while on the board of CL Financial, our expectations are now much higher. Regardless of the way Sir Anthony Colman treats his evidence in the CLICO inquiry, Minister Tewarie's book sense and common sense is our business.

When you talk about boards and high-level committees, the Minister has a long list of credentials. He was on Republic Bank Limited's board for 12 years from 1997 to 2009 and on the board of Trinidad Publishing Co., from 2001 to 2008. These two companies are publicly listed, have significant corporate governance responsibilities generally, and both would have been educating directors on an ongoing basis on their duties, responsibilities and liabilities.

At the cornerstone of that education would have been the first and ultimate power of directors to manage the company's affairs. A reasonable person would expect that with these board and high-level appointments, most running simultaneously with his CL Financial tenure, Bhoe would have understood some corporate governance fundamentals. But before Sir Anthony Colman that was not obvious and this where the problems lie.

Lifting the veil of silk

Do not believe that the Senior Counsel noise will easily lead to change. The Law Association was pushed here before and nothing came out of it. The AG may wish to provide the data to show whether taxpayers are the ones paying out the bulk of fees earned by senior counsel and their juniors. That may answer the question of why the legal profession has, despite many urgings and Commonwealth precedent, failed to resolve the antiquity of the appointment of silk and the political control of it. What we may find out is that it is not the Senior Counsel earning the oversized fees but the juniors whose selection is entirely a matter of politics.

The Senior Counsel issue jolted former chief justices and eminent seniors but found the Law Association asleep: at best the Association was scheduled to meet one week later in emergency session.

The Law Association's flat-footedness on the senior counsel issue brought to mind then Chief Justice Sharma's speech at the opening of the 2003 law term. Sharma cited the work of writer John Mortimer and "a general decrease in the awe and wonder with which the population looks at its established institutions". If, as people believe, the country has been set upon by pessimists, cynics and doomsayers, many of them have just cause.

When a country's legal profession equivocates while the reasonable man takes the fight to the politicians, what else is left to fall apart?

Self-appointments as Senior Counsel: How it go look?

Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar

The Prime Minister's first case as Senior Counsel will be to provide the evidence of her qualifications for that appointment.

Overshadowing these Senior Counsel appointments is a question calypsonian Ronnie McIntosh once asked: How it go look? Those who see no problem with the PM's name topping the list of 16 new Senior Counsel must convince the country that this is not another example of abuse of office and questionable judgment. In addition the Chief Justice must re-examine the implications of sitting judges being offered the appointment of Senior Counsel in a politically-controlled process, mindful that judges may return to private practice and silk is an opportunity to earn fees on a much higher scale.

To any mildly knowledgeable person the handling of these Senior Counsel appointments is disreputable. When you combine the PM's and AG's self-appointment to Senior Counsel and a quixotic New Year's message in which the PM decries corruption and the perception of it, you get the feeling that delusion has made its way to the top. When the PM promises to "deal squarely with any corruption which surfaces" in her Government then you naturally question her failure to handle corruption allegations within the Government decisively, Mary King-style.

And when you consider the self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest involved in the appointment of the top two members of Government to the Senior Counsel position, you must reject the PM's New Year's anti-corruption posture as absurd rhetoric. After all, self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest are the basic ingredients of corruption.

The biggest backlash is the uneasiness in the judiciary created by the decision to appoint sitting judges Senior Counsel, not because any lack merit but for the angst amongst those judges who have not been appointed as to the reasons some will go forward and others will not. The landmine planted in the judiciary is the question of how judges will or will not gain a Senior Counsel appointment once those appointments are politically controlled. Beyond the PM's and AG's self-dealing, when some judges get silk and others don't, how it go look?

Same old, same old for 2012

As we get the auld lang syne ready, we are carrying some heavy political baggage into 2012. It is no pleasant surprise that the revived political careers of Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning are going into 2012 with us. It is not our heaviest baggage, but it is a sign of how desperate the search for political leadership might become. Apparently old political habits and acquaintances are not easily forgotten.

The country's national security provides the best evidence of how rotten our old political habits have been. In 2011 the medal-winning national security forces were aroused like jep by a half-cooked assassination zeppo, but their political leadership stayed in shameless denial of those running the crime. If the drawn-out assault on criminals stands out in the year-end review, then the significance is in those who were not arrested.

In 2011 the PM played the old political card of roughing up the little people and quickly playing kiss and make up. But just like her two predecessors who now jostle to rival her again, the PM left the influence-peddling, money laundering and bourgeois crime families untouched. It is the firmest confirmation for the country that for crime to be reduced, we have to start with the politicians.

Not one of the current parties can tackle drugs, guns and murders and then fund an election campaign. And the heaviest baggage we carry into 2012 is the knowledge and confirmation that it took 107 days of public emergency powers for the PM to reveal that when it comes to crime, she knows who and what not to touch.

Subbing for Santa

Nice one Santa. My little girl stuck a list in my hand and flew off to New York for the holidays. Her instructions were precise: Santa has a website so you can upload this. She is confident that despite a small slip-up last year Santa has GPS and will know her whereabouts on Christmas Eve. And so the pressure is on — DSI games, crayon designer, Play Doh, a real camera, a real laptop, a real TV, bracelet set and a hair designer. My sons, though unlikely to make a list, quietly await the Xbox Kinnect. Come on Santa, do I look like a department store?

Things change rapidly; all these technology-driven toys are out of date by the time the season is over; and upgrades, add-ons, warranties and online membership appear even before the credit card is cleared. Get a life Elmo and Barbie and stop making me pay for your house, car and that new dance video you need me to download for $19.99. And stop sending me emails!

Of course it doesn't help that my six-year-old knew the difference between real and fake by the time she was two. Her list clearly distinguishes between the plastic crap which took her through the first few Christmases and the real deal which a girl needs. And this is not about me and what I think. This is about my daughter's relationship with Santa.

Santa is the gold standard of behaviour. Santa keeps his word. Santa delivers. Santa is omnipotent and omnipresent. Santa pays the best wages, has the finest global supply chain management, buys from ethical sources, does not harm the environment and keeps his word.

Me? I guess I am just a guy with a list and instructions to upload it to Santa's website. Ho, ho, ho Santa!

Behind the lock-out of a school principal: Going after the principle

Properly understood, the relationship between the State, the denominational boards, teachers and students is governed by the 1960 Concordat and the Education Act. A teacher in a denominational school is accountable on four levels, at least: to the parents, denominational board, Ministry of Education and the TSC. So far the relationship between the principal and the denominational board has been publicised. We do not know much about the parents, the ministry and the TSC over the past two years, when the problems were on the boil.

To get to the point of lock-out, something has not been functioning. There is established under the Education Act various bodies with responsibility for primary school education. These include an advisory committee; the local education district; local advisory boards and committees; the three-member board of management of assisted schools and the supervisors of schools.

Principals are responsible for the day-to-day management of their school and co-operation with parents in the execution of these responsibilities. But the TSC and supervisors have specific responsibility for the observance of the law, the supervision of the due performance of the functions of school managers and issues of gross misbehaviour, gross inefficiency or other conduct unfitting a teacher for employment. So what failed?

 What happens after 107 days of Emergency Powers and Curfew: Emerging from the Emergency

The State of Emergency is over, for now. As it was in the beginning, so it is at the end. For 107 days the engines revved at high speed, with little forward movement. No new law; no new magistrate or court; and no additional prosecutors brought in to work on the new cases. One hundred and seven days later, it is the DPP who needs four Senior Counsel from the Criminal Bar working with him. Instead the Government has that facility, ending 107 days when the police service and Government became indistinguishable. If the prosecutions fall apart; crime persists and the scandals in Government come in daily doses, the country will face a major question. What next?

For now the way forward requires a reconsideration of the party politics as the centre of gravity in the country. The anti-gang arrests exposed the decay of communities, peace shattered by drug dealing and the attractions of crime. Instead of strong communities and leadership within those communities, centralised governments firmed up their tentacles through the range of social projects, easy money and political friends with benefits.

It is a largely irreversible cycle of birth, drugs, guns, crime, political handouts and death. The political problem is the duplication of the same party rivalries across parliamentary and Local Government elections, voiding genuine community activism and sidelining issues relevant to each community. Community politics, incorporating local school boards, facilities and infrastructure and the provision of services by community NGOs must be the new foundation stone towards the forward movement.

The Emergency days also demonstrated that basic needs of the country have been surrendered to expensive and ineffective centralised government, inefficient for two reasons. First it is impossible for politicians to manage long-term planning, policy making, service delivery and popularity at the same time.
Second, very few politicians actually possess the skill and experience to manage a large workload and multitask through the demands of the Government.

 A threat to assassinate Government Ministers: Fact and Fiction

The Government is addicted to terror plots and this one carries the unmistakable sub-title of an Islamic plot against a Hindu theocracy. And despite its alleged hand in uncovering this assassination plot, the US is not too troubled. That is uncharacteristic of the Americans since Islamic terror plots and political subversion by drug cartels have spawned billion-dollar spending by the US, and reams of policy paper. But the US has not issued a travel alert to warn its nationals of Trinidad and Tobago's potential danger and it has made no extra effort to secure its vital LNG supplies. Trinidad and Tobago supplies 40 percent of US LNG imports, critical in this winter. So either the US has lost interest in fringe radicals and drug cartels or our Government needs addiction therapy.

Political distrust is more heightened since the emergency and curfew. People want to believe but there's too much distrust. Why would anybody want to harm the political leadership? So far they are doing a pretty good job themselves. Towards the end of the last Government's shortened term, the country increased its watch on the state companies, wary of carefree politicians and their friends who believe that state coffers are instant jackpots. Around traditional feeding troughs the country increased its surveillance and every day the media subjected the politicians to analysis and fact-checking, alert to spin doctors and propaganda. And the Government has been caught, more than once, with increased frequency.

The fact is that when it comes to political threats, no high precision rifle can kill political ambition like the ill-conceived $300 million giveaway. No subversive material convinces of ineptitude as a super-sized DNA bill and more legislation which attacks fundamental rights in the name of the rule of law. Overzealous ministers side-stepping basic public policy doctrine are more frightening than men in balaclavas plotting instability. Political guesswork poses a greater danger to the country than any factual or fictitious terror script and the PM's press conferences will soon rival Ripley's "Believe it or Not".

FIFA, bribery and Trinidad & Tobago politics: And Jack plays on

Minister Jack Warner

In politics, perception is often more important than reality. Google the phrase "Jack Warner bribery" and in 0.11 seconds you get 1.6 million results. Worse than that: Google "Warner bribery" and when you get to the second "b", Google intuitively redirects you to "Jack Warner bribery". No Prime Minister who is serious about restoring the rule of law and good governance will ignore the impact of this. Yet, the country is stuck with Warner, as the PM skips first principles of good governance.

In May 2011 the PM declared her support for Warner. This as Warner was forced out of FIFA amidst serious bribery allegations. The PM left the bribery allegations for FIFA to deal with. Warner did not give FIFA that opportunity; his resignation from FIFA effectively ended the matter. With the allegations unresolved, the PM had a compelling reason to consider the impact on her Government. She opted not to, and though she subsequently reduced Warner's portfolio, that appeared unrelated to the FIFA bribery allegations.

In October a video from the bribery meeting surfaced and public interest revived. The PM passed that off to the Attorney General, emphasising her continued underweighting of the events in the context of her party, government and country. Going forward it makes the PM complicit in her neglect of the first principles of good governance.

Feeding the beast

 In 2005, the first year murders averaged one a day, the Government planned to spend $8 million a day on national security and $5 million a day on social programmes. It actually spent $8 million a day on national security but more than $11 million a day on social programmes.

One year later, the spending on national security was about the same but social spending increased to $13 million a day. In other words, from 2005 to 2006 the Government more than doubled its spending on social programmes in an attempt to fight a list of woes, crime mainly. The lack of results is obvious. But even worse, the PNM MPs have condemned the $300 million plan, deeming it an insulting handout. The PNM criticises handouts?

Just over a decade ago then UNC Minister of Finance Brian Kuei Tung shared the same idea of using job creation to deal with crime. In his 2000 budget presentation Mr Kuei Tung promised that his Government would do everything possible to fight crime: "Our crime-fighting programme depends on the creation of jobs, providing better quality education and investing in law enforcement."

Neither Mr Kuei Tung nor the rest of the country could see into the future. With all the optimism and promises, in less than a decade the annual murder toll exceeded all the murders for the five years which preceded Kuei Tung's statement. And the year preceding Kuei Tung's promise would be the last time murders would be less than 100 for the year. In fact, despite the political optimism, increased spending and the creation of more and more ways to pipe funds into the crime hotspots, the annual murder rate would quadruple in less than five years.

The country is now spending over $13 million a day on national security and social spending is all over the place. One out of every five dollars earned by the country goes into the fight against crime and social decay. We are about to hand out even more, with the usual optimism and promise of positive results. Except that we have a decade of experience to learn from, if we needed to and that $300 million is seed-money for criminal enterprise.

Political hands mapping DNA law

The proposed DNA law will be measured by the Government's handling of national security: the reckless appointment of the anti-narcotics czar; the use of emergency powers with the weakest justification of yet unknown major national security threats and the deployment of the police and military to rounds-up without cause. Add the lowest level of trust in the politicians, the police and police spokespeople who create law as they go along. Even with its positive changes, if it becomes law, the new DNA Act will give national security's Mr Bean something else to bungle.

Fooling around with DNA sampling has dangerous consequences. DNA sampling protects the society with its potential for early detection, arrest and conviction of offenders. But it also interferes with the fundamental rights of the individual to security of the person and privacy. To be effective the legislation must balance these competing interests; to be fair it must support crime-fighting and not just carry the permanent watermark of the State of Emergency.

To measure effectiveness and fairness, the DNA debate must focus on two areas: the extension of DNA sampling without consent to all offences and the differences between the current and proposed legislation. Both the current and proposed legislation go against the grain of DNA legislation.The current arrangement restricts the use of sampling to indictable offences and summary offences punishable by imprisonment for more than six months.

But the new legislation will permit DNA samples to be taken without consent in all offences. DNA is not useful in every criminal offence.

Dredging up the fingerlings

Faced with evidence of abuse of the anti-gang legislation, the Government has lobbed the scholarship issue into the crowd mainly to distract. The scholarship issue is about race and misbehaviour which should not go unpunished. But before it ends, the State of Emergency is a more urgent discussion. It has done nothing the law in its usual course could not have done and has failed to treat class, connections and privilege with indifference.

In east Port of Spain the State has freely experimented with the grey tones of anti-gang legislation and emergency powers. It will not do the same in Westmoorings, Valsayn, Gulf View and Lange Park. The State will not shutter Frederick, Queen, Charlotte and Henry streets and search business premises but it will lock down and purge Beetham, Enterprise and Sea Lots. The State will not sweep through the yacht clubs, marinas, down-the-island homes and waterfront homes with boat slips, but will kick down Nelson Street doors. The irresistible conclusion is that the creators of the State of Emergency narrowed its ambit from the outset.

There are more dangerous consequences to the Government's selectivity than the current rancour over the State of Emergency. The diagnostic images show no change in the status quo, we having avoided the more serious treatment. For 18 months the Government has tinkered with legislation aimed at fingerlings but has developed no lure for the big fish. Race and proportionality will provide inflammatory discourse but we cannot go there for answers.

Rather than solve, the emergency has highlighted the class-centred problem.