Daly Bread: The Gov’t rests on withered laurels, while public lacks feasible alternative

Resignation from political office is a rare event in our country and I had intended to comment on the significance of the resignation of Laurel Lezama-Lee Sing from the Government bench in the Senate. However, reference to her current courthouse business may bring trouble on this publication.

Nevertheless, I can recall the occasions when the late, former Minister Marlene McDonald went in and out of office, being brought back from dismissal more than once. And I can remind readers how much the political strength of the People’s National Movement (PNM) rests on its activist female membership, comprising of persons like Marlene and Laurel.

In another sense, the current Government is resting on withered laurels. First, the economic laurel leaves are now withering as the energy sector struggles without a sufficient supply of natural gas.

Mere days before the 2024-2025 budget was to be delivered, the Prime Minister was reported as saying that this year until the second quarter of 2027, would be a difficult period for us.

He stated that we should be responsible and “hold the fort, with a very good view and good confidence that come 2027 we would be in a better position” thanks to the energy industry.

Secondly, new economic growth and investment are stunted by the Government’s inability and/or lack of will to neutralize the continuous acid rain of violent crime.

Prior to the delivery of the budget, and with increasing stridency subsequent to its delivery on Monday last, high-profile representatives of the business communities have confirmed this.

For example, the President of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber was reported in Wednesday’s Trinidad Guardian as saying that “crime is not just a social ill; it is an economic adversary that erodes the very foundation of the country’s prosperity”.

Moreover, the Government’s entire credibility has long been shattered by the impunity with which violent crime is continuously committed. Citizens are certainly not able “to hold the fort” in their homes and elsewhere, where they are at risk of being routinely attacked, and in their businesses where they are victims of criminal extortion.

The breezy delivery of promises and proposed expenditures contained in the Budget Statement of Monday last are completely inconsistent with the reality of the pervasive siege of criminality, which is now belatedly being acknowledged.

I repeatedly foretold the coming of the violent crime reality in these columns for over two decades, while the business heads from time-to-time muttered platitudes and did not want to consider and face what would befall us.

They are now crying, after many unregulated, and some probably vast donations to political parties and campaigns have been made to support the proverbial rum and feast politics, complemented by cocktail party style politics.

See my column entitled ‘Violent crime retrospective’, which was published a little over one year ago, on 24 September 2023.

An editorial in the Trinidad Express newspaper, a little earlier in 2023, described the drug trade as “now so deeply embedded in the very fabric of the society that the question of securing the country from its nefarious impacts is not even on the agenda”.

Are the crying business heads now willing to acknowledge our situation as a narco-infiltrated state?

Next, at the crucial level of good housekeeping, the Government is borrowing to fund current expenditure and is spending more than the country earns. It well knows that such expenditure, which is primarily to sustain the high degree of subsidization of water, electricity and fuel prices, is not a tenable position.

We need a policy for reform, free of corrupt partisan preferences, so that necessary utility rate and fuel price adjustments will protect the vulnerable and not crush them.

This is the unstable background against which the Government is asking us “to hold the fort”, as it moves from its consecutive victories in the polls in the General Elections of 2015 and 2020 into the next General Election, to be held no later than 2025.

Seriously?

Platitudes about crime have morphed into more aggressive language but prolonged obsequiousness has cost us dearly and will continue to do so. And yet another unpleasant reality is the sad but likely lack of any competitive choice at the polls in the coming General Election.

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.