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Political Leaders Must Uphold Higher Standards
Category: Politics
Dress Down Rowley
What is happening to my Prime Minister? What was his inspiration to be casually dressed at the closing ceremony of the inaugural Canada-CARICOM Summit. A photograph from the closing ceremony showed Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Guyana’s President and Dr. Irfaan impeccably dressed while my Prime Minister wore a casual jersey paired with a hooded sweater.
This visual contrast raised the question: Is my Prime Minister truly engaged on behalf of my country? How does he think the world will assess the quality of our nation’s global representation? Some may interpret his choice as an attempt to connect with everyday citizens and I respect that perspective. But I felt ashamed.
There might be a valid explanation for this nonconformity, such as the unfortunate scenario of his luggage being misplaced or failing to arrive with him. Although the chances of the Prime Minister’s luggage not arriving in a foreign country are slim, such an event would warrant investigating potential lapses in responsibility, and somebody should be fired.
Even in the event of his luggage not arriving, his accompanying team should have the capacity to swiftly visit a shopping mall to acquire suitable clothing.
An alternative rationale for his choice of attire could be a scheduling mishap. Perhaps, while on the golf course, an unforeseen urgency arose, requiring an immediate meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister. In his haste to return to his lodgings, he may have been unable to locate his formal attire, leading him to represent our nation in casual wear. Nonetheless, this possible explanation is my imagination overworking because conference agendas are typically well-prepared in advance.
A third possible reason for his relaxed appearance could be a deliberate attempt to convey a message that the world should transition away from formality in favor of more informal and friendly interactions. I hope that his departure from traditional attire will not be misconstrued as a breach of protocol and diplomatic norms.
Regardless of the reasons behind my Prime Minister’s seemingly unconventional attire in representing our nation, I extend my empathy and understanding. This incident offers us another opportunity for introspection as a nation. As the next election approaches, we should make decisions to ensure our country’s global representation meets the highest standards.
Miracle Ex-Minister beats background check to land Trade job
Tuesday 18 July 2023 Letters to the Editor, View Point Leave a comment
Dear Former Minister Darryl Smith,
Congratulations on your recent appointment as a commercial officer for the Ministry of Trade. Your appointment is an indication that you passed the background check with flying colours and landed this very important job to represent our country.
(via MSYA)
It is truly heart-warming to see you triumph against the odds, especially since you were fired by the Prime Minister in 2018 for ‘interfering improperly in the public service’. What better way to inspire the next generation than by demonstrating that a person could be fired, survived allegations of sexual harassment, and still achieve such a high-status job?
I wonder what would have happened if a woman was accused of sexual harassment?! She might still be languishing in her bedroom begging for forgiveness.
But in the men’s club, you are being celebrated. Whoopie!
In this high-class “wuk”, your main responsibility will be: “to develop overseas markets and boost exports to key strategic trading partners”. I am sure that your resume is littered with examples of how you are ideally suited for this fantastic position.
During the background check, I suspect that your current boss, Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon asked your former boss, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley if he would recommend you for the position.
(via trinidadexpress.com)
And your former boss, who had also appointed you chairman of the Diego Martin Regional Corporation, answered politely to endorse your capabilities.
Maybe, your former boss reflected on the chances of him losing his own “wuk” in 2025 and said: boy, now dat ah in charge, ah go give meh friend everything.
Whatever the considerations, congratulations and may you continue to be a shining beacon of hope for all those who lack ethics or basic qualifications.
Steups!
Thanks “Auntie Tantie”
Goodbye, Auntie Tantie. May our country continue to benefit from your wisdom and fervour. As you depart, I wonder what has changed during your service as the first female President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Early in your tenure, I was inspired by your visit to Sea Lots on that Friday evening. Then you embraced Auntie Tantie as a “badge of honour” and had the Tantie courage to pelt bouf at our parliamentarians whenever you had the opportunity.
Throughout your term in office, you have shown empathy for our people, and I recall being stunned by your statement, “People are hurting, and they feel parliamentarians are not listening.”
‘If you are seen to treat each other with respect, courtesy, and good humour, there can be a trickle-down effect and eventual cascade. But when acrimony, contempt, and divisiveness is the example you set, you cannot be surprised when those attitudes and behaviours are replicated on the nation’s roads, in our schools and homes, and on social media.
You continued in that address and said to the Parliamentarians:
Unfortunately, it seems that your messages have fallen on the ears of 41 tone-deaf Parliamentarians who are focused on how they can benefit personally yet have zero empathy for the daily pain citizens are experiencing.
You are leaving office and the country continues to be in deep crisis as captured by your statement: “I fear we have become a savage people. Lines drawn between ethnicities, political affiliations, the haves, and the have-nots, worker, and employer, citizens and migrants have solidified into intolerance, impatience, unkindness, vitriol, and in many cases, downright nastiness…”
In that single statement, you have captured the key issues which our politicians should be addressing.
As the population awaits the selection of your successor, I am hopeful that the new President will be able to use his/her office and weekly meetings to encourage the Prime Minister to focus on the need to redesign our antiquated and mal-functioning systems and processes.
Although your departure provides another opportunity for a new beginning, I would prefer that your successor takes your lead, and carries forward the message that politicians should allow the plight of people to be the impetus for policy change.
Auntie Tantie … Thanks for your service and may your universe unfold exactly as you wish.
Of porous boarders and Venezuelan babies …
Our history records Trinidad and Tobago’s fisherfolk dodging bullets from or being arrested by Venezuela’s Guardia Nacional for supposedly being in Venezuelan waters. Today we continue to metaphorically dodge different kinds of bullets from our Venezuelan neighbours.
For years, the back-and-forth confrontational posturing was a trickle—the fisherfolk dispute, or the occasional Venezuelan found illegally in T&T. Then came the sustained deluge of illegal Venezuelans seeking a better life.
The most recent ‘bullets’ include the jitters caused some weeks ago by the potential environmental hazard posed by the tilting oil tanker, the Nabarima.
This week, it is the mistreatment of Venezuelan children, both on land and sea. Unless specific action is taken to manage our open borders, it is only a matter of time before Trinidad and Tobago is featured globally in some emblematic photograph of a cross-border disaster involving our Venezuelan neighbours.
Remember the pictures of Kim Phuc the naked 9-year old fleeing the Napalm attack in Vietnam on 8 June 1972? Or the little Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, drowned on a beach in Turkey on 2 September of 2015 while trying to reach shore?
These are not alarmist notions but warnings of possibilities, even as the Minister of National Security claims that the law says they are ‘undesirables’.
There is no question about our inability to absorb unchecked Venezuelan migration but it will continue to happen until our borders are policed and managed, and infrastructure and regulations for humane treatment of refugees and migrants are implemented.
(Copyright Alva Viarruel/AFP 2016/Wired868)
We did well to regularise 15,000 Venezuelan neighbours and it is almost time for their revalidation. But we are not doing well with the treatment of the estimated 16 Venezuelan children whom we have shunted from prison cells to pirogue onto the ocean and then back again.
Even in times of war, there is a commitment to protect the children unless you have ‘Trumpian’ tendencies and feel no empathy for caged children. In the midst of this, the minister of national security was allegedly unaware of the decision to escort a pirogue filled with children (one of whom was just 4 months old)—in the absence of their parents or guardians—into the open sea.
In a completely different aspect of law and order, the population is yet to receive a reasonable explanation of what happened with the DSS (Drug Sou Sou) money which was shunted from the home of the owner to the police station and back again. The common pattern in these two very different incidents is that either there is no rule book or the rules are not being followed.
Either way, it is time for action to be taken. But first we must admit that we are presiding over deep systemic failure of our institutions. It is from this recognition that things are falling apart that we may find the window of opportunity to redesign our systems and re-imagine a different future.
(Copyright TTPS)
The anecdotal evidence is that we are generally welcoming the Venezuelans and trying to accommodate them as fellow human beings. Many are being absorbed because their work ethic is superior to ours, although others have become collateral damage and players in our fast expanding underworld.
The country is at crisis level with the influx of Venezuelans, drugs and guns through our porous borders.
If a solution is not implemented soon it will be a matter of time before a humanitarian disaster catapults us onto the world stage in unfortunate ways.
My April 07, 2020 letter to P.M. Rowley
This is one of the letters which I have written to
Prime Minister Rowley over the past 5 years.
Congratulations on your 55th month as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Mr. Prime Minister, despite your stridency on the campaign trail in 2015, public transportation continues to be chaotic and unreliable. I am taking this opportunity to suggest for the 3rd time that you make Chaguaramas into our first “Bus only” city. This thought was stimulated by the “FluTag” disaster, St. Peter’s Day Celebrations, every Carnival Fete in Chaguaramas and the visual of 2 massive car parks which routinely house the private vehicles owned by members of the Regiment and Coast Guard. The stadium can be used as a car park and regular bus shuttles could operate on time from there. It would require the registration of resident’s vehicles and the issuance of passes.
I sincerely hope that you will at least establish a committee to identify the feasibility of this idea or some other idea which can positively impact transportation in Chaguaramas.
Yours for our country!
Dennise Demming (Mrs.)
MBA, BSc., Cert-Mass Comm
Citizen
My February 07, 2020 letter to P.M. Rowley
This is one of the letters which I have written to
Prime Minister Rowley over the past 5 years.
Dear Dr. Rowley
Congratulations on your 53rd month as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
It is almost 10 years since Despers was chased from the “Hill” by their children and the band continues to move from property to property in search of a home.
May I suggest that the property on which they now practice be converted into a National Pan Theatre and a home for Despers. For many years the Government Printery was housed there which makes its allocation a simple exercise. Such a move by your government will not go un-noticed by the people of the “Hill” and the “Pan Fraternity”.
Yours in the interest of development.
Dennise Demming (Mrs.)
MBA, BSc., Cert-Mass Communications
Concerned Citizen
My Sept 7, 2019 letter to P.M. Rowley
This is one of the letters which I have written to
Prime Minister Rowley over the past 5 years.
Dear Dr. Rowley
Congratulations on your 48th month as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
More than one year ago you indicated that in 2019 there will be a comprehensive ban on the use of styrofoam products and I wrote asking that single use plastics be included in that initiative.
I am requesting an update on the action plan associated with the implementation of this ban including the status of the legislative agenda.
Yours in the interest of development.
Dennise Demming (Mrs.)
MBA, BSc., Cert-Mass Communications
Concerned Citizen
My August 7th, 2019 letter to P.M. Rowley.
This is one of the letters which I have written to
Prime Minister Rowley over the past 5 years.
Dear Dr. Rowley
Congratulations on your 47th month as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Sir, the focus on guns and drugs is commendable however we continue to allow traffic violations and indiscipline on the roads. Some of the indiscipline comes from the fact that people who “bought” their driver’s permit are unlikely to be able to read and write.
May I suggest a Public Awareness campaign of 15 second radio and television advertisements done in standard English and focussing on the rules contained in the regulations handbook.
Yours in the interest of development.
Dennise Demming (Mrs.)
MBA, BSc., Cert-Mass Communications
Concerned Citizen
My March 7th, 2019 letter to P.M. Rowley
This is one of the letters which I have written to
Prime Minister Rowley over the past 5 years.
Dear Dr. Rowley
Congratulations on your 42nd month as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
For 10 years I worked alongside the late Dr. Pat Bishop as she arranged music for Despers and I held the position of Corporate Communications Manager at WITCO. One memory I have is of her lamenting the absence of a Carnival Museum dedicated to telling our stories of Carnival. She even mused that the Treasury Building on Independence Square would be a suitable space because of its thick walls, high ceilings and proximity to the Port.
This is brought to your attention in the hope that you will decide to use the Treasury Building to house our nation’s Carnival Museum. Such a decision will require relatively small injection of capital and will bring an immediate solution to a historical problem.
I also recall spending a lazy afternoon into evening visiting the Panama Canal and understanding the tremendous income generator that it is for Panama City. May I suggest that Carnival is to Trinidad and Tobago what the Panama Canal is to Panama. A Carnival Museum in close proximity to the port of Port of Spain will be an income generator for the passengers on the Cruise ships as well as a place where our children can learn of our past Carnivals and be inspired to dream of a future filled with possibilities.
Yours in the interest of development,
Dennise Demming (Mrs.)
MBA, BSc., Cert-Mass Communications
Citizen
Dennise Demming 