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Hindsight is 2020 vision, they say.
As we transition into a new year and a new decade, coincidentally 2020, the year a Vision should have been completed, we can look back at 2019 and take stock of where we’ve been as a guide as to where we are heading. As the year was in its dying days (pun intended), the population was perplexed with anxieties about their personal safety and security as the murder toll hurtled along to a massive 538, the perpetrators apparently anxious to prove that 2018 could be displaced into to third position for record innings by the criminal purveyors of death. Many were also in anxiety over their physical assets as time was counting down to the deadline for an ordinarily monetary measure was implemented ostensibly for national security purposes. Uncertainty not only drove many into lengthy stays at the banks to ensure their few blue notes would remain useful by replacement or deposit, it also drove businesses and at least one superpower embassy to commit consumer (if not legal infraction) by announcing pre-emptory refusal of perfectly legal tender. Anxiety also lurked in the shadow of a big story that straddled the stroke of midnight – a $28M pastor snagged in the ‘source of funds-declare your wealth’ net that accompanied demonetisation. His largesse quite possibly the fortunate catch doled out by an insecure flock concerned about every facet of their future in this land of unfulfilled promise and threat of decadence and demise in economic, political, social, cultural and every other aspect of life. Such was the close of a year in which we were constantly reminded of the “difficult times” in which we were engulfed, much like the proverbial fly in the spider’s web. In a way, the portrayal of the Mystery Raiders posse of Marauding Midnight Robbers (my band) titled A-Nancy Story was a foreboding. And these are difficult times indeed. ECONOMY Despite the assurances in the 2019 Budget presentation headlined “Turnaround”, the largest of the present administration’s 4 fiscal packages to date, the question is still being asked, where is it. Not even the election campaign slogan – Getting It Done – served to either mobilise the voters or reassure the increasingly uneasy population. From all indications and the sleuth of expert reports, the economy continued its downward trajectory throughout 2019 with little real prospect of a course change in 2020. Perhaps, the Finance Ministry posting online and advertising elsewhere 10 to 15% increases in wages and stipends for the least secure and most vulnerable among the employed and the promised creation of 3,000 temporary trainee positions as “Fiscal Measures” in December should tell us something about the urgency to prove that the turnaround is happening. The New Year ‘fiscal measures’ – a combination of Loss Relief, Investment Tax Credits and Capital Allowances of 20 to 75% to Energy Corporations demonstrate a desire by Government to ‘incentivise’ the oil and gas barons in hopeful expectation as the Prime Minister urged the nation to “Pray for Oil” at the end of the first quarter 2019. Despite announcements of successful renegotiation of gas contracts on either side of the Atlantic, gas production remains 400bcfd (billion cubic feet per day) below the requirements for a sustainable petrochemical sector. Some dry holes and a failed bid-round have not added to the optimism that some harbour. Nor has the restructuring (seamless transition) of Petrotrin yielded any increase in oil production despite frequent announcements of operating accounting successes. Our most important economic sector, the one on which we have depended heavily for revenue, GDP and Foreign Exchange contributions is in decline into the foreseeable future. And despite promises of Chinese investment miracles in a major dry dock facility and industrial estate units (reminiscent of the industrialisation by invitation thrust of the 1960-70s), there is no new economic game-changer on the horizon. The announced incentives to the tourism, creative arts, agricultural sectors have to date yielded no significant results to cope for the loss of income from the energy sector with declining production and prices only marginally and temporarily increased by the prospect of a new round of war in the Middle East. SAFETY AND SECURITY Despite a slew of laws with stiffer and stiffer penalties, promising to deal with the zessers and smash the gangs; despite the militarisation of the police operations with a camouflaged masked squad reminiscent of an older airborne squad; despite photo ops by the top cop standing over the latest police fatality (a la ghost of Randy B); despite the resurrected promise by the NatSec Minister of ‘Big Fish’ going down by December, the murderous criminality has remained uncontrolled. On the last day of the year, in an ironic twist, the CoP’s assurance that we had not yet witnessed mass shootings seemed to have summoned the grim reapers to wantonly shoot 11 citizens, killing 1, on the streets of the capital. A new record murder toll. A national security monetary demonetisation that has so far unearthed a pastor among several citizens now labelled the ‘unbanked’, most of whom were herded as new customers for a benefitting finance sector. The promised release of hundreds of prisoners with the cannabis decriminalisation measure is yet to be realised. All of the ‘Law and Order’ measures have, like the economic measures, not stemmed the slide into more barbaric criminality with ambush of 11 fishermen in the Gulf, an 8-man gangland commando attack on a reputed gangster on the North Coast, the escape of 8 and 5 prisoners on very serious charges from the adult and youth prisons at Golden Grove. At the end of the year, a Judicial Officer was moved to remark, “in a democracy, fear of crime cannot result in a circumstance where the enshrined rights guaranteed under the …Constitution are compromised”. An important injunction. POLITICS In the arena of political affairs, things have not fared any better. The Constitutional ‘area of darkness’ that President Richards bemoaned at the 50th Independence Anniversary – the relationship between Tobago and Trinidad – remains in the same state of lack or solution. Promises of Self-government and/or Autonomy persist. The Local Government Reform about which we were told the 2016 LGE was a referendum has not seen the light of day. In the next round of the LGE cycle, everything from opposition to Property Tax to intransigence of the Opposition party was presented as excuse to cover over the fact that the Local Government Reform Bill (again assured in March) made it to Parliament too close to the end of Term to be passed. Nor has the Campaign Finance legislation we were told in January was ‘being finalised’ seen the light of Parliamentary day. The Procurement legislation remains “unusable” and the ball we are told has been in the Finance Minister’s court since September, while massive acquisitions are undertaken even with Cabinet committees as evaluation and tender committees for massive State contracts. Sweetheart housing construction contract, abandonment of BOLT approach in Tobago airport expansion, notwithstanding, the urgency of enhancing transparency and accountability in the disbursement of public money seems lost on those who are most to be held accountable. The expenditure of huge sums of money by the ruling party and its ‘Getting It Done” campaign banner, the at times almost vulgar blame game between the 2 so-called major parties, the emergence of a regional party and several parties (new and not-so-new) throwing their ‘hats in the ring’ failed to produce a turnout of anything more than the average for that election exercise. The outcome of a 7-7 Corporation draw between the political monopoly parties prompted desperate claims of ‘victory’ on both sides with spurious evidence bordering on the ridiculous. The crisis in our politics has also escaped solution or turnaround in 2019. SOCIAL CONDITION The further and escalating decay in our social condition was also evidenced in the frightful numbers reported in the abuse of our women, children, elderly and the competition among the months of the year for the title of bloodiest. Not even our utilities offer us a glimmer of hope of improvement and our health and other facilities remain closed for political reasons or move no closer to guaranteeing our most basic Rights to fundamental needs. With the benefit of hindsight, we can only sum up our life experience over the last 12 months as the erection of further warning signs of an internal decadence gnawing away at the social physiology of our body politic. Our nation-building project is threatened not by external aggressors, but, by an internal sedition (not envisaged by the archaic Sedition Act which has been resurrected against dissent) which is anti-social in its form and content. Despite the assault on our Rights and Freedoms, each new threat continues to be met with resistance. From the opposition to Bill No. 17 which attempted to strangle our access to public information, to the use of sedition charges against dissent, to the attempts to exclude Judicial discretion in the exercise of the Right to Bail, to the various verbal bombs unleashed against our institutions by the holders of the most senior offices, the body politic has risen in defence. Politicians have even descended into attacking citizens from their platforms and positions of authority simply because citizens exercise their Right to Speak on matters of Public Interest. Citizens stand up against the bullying. STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS Instinctively, the population know and understand that it is by guaranteeing the Rights of All, mighty or vulnerable, be those Rights economic, political, social, cultural or otherwise, that Real Security and Safety will be available to All. Propaganda about ‘building a “new society”’ while all of the essentials of the old – unsustainable economy, archaic governance structures and processes, militarisation and unbridled damage of the environment, moral and cultural decay – all persist, will not change the facts nor eliminate the Necessity for Change that is Real. Understanding the warning signs that became more apparent in 2019, one commentator was moved to shout – Take Warning – when he quoted the following: “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” – Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler. In 2020, let us not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Let us not allow daily developments to prevent us from understanding where things are heading. The surest way to reach the point “at which these changes cannot be reversed” is to accept the prejudices and easy answers without questioning ready-made prejudices, beliefs and dogma including the stereotyping and labelling of people. To always question, investigate and determine the reality of what is proposed as “New” and the ‘Solution” is vital if we are to avoid the point of no return. In this 50th year of the 1970 Revolution, we are reminded, and must be confident, that We, the People, have the capability to create the solutions and to advance the nation-building project for a sustainable society fit for human beings in this 21st century. Clyde A Weatherhead A Citizen Fighting for the Democratic Renewal of Our Society 3 January 2020 2019 – Month by Month January
February
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November
December
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