Yesterday, at the turning of the sod for a segment of the Valencia-Too highway project, in a kind of bizarre drama, the Works and Transport Minister, Sinanan, told constituents of Toco-Sangre Grande to “fight back if the Opposition tries to stop the $196M..project”. (http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/sinanan-tells-tocomanzanilla-constituents-.2.811290.bf3927b0a7)
Not to be outdone, the PM in his turn at the microphone declared that the Highway is part of a road network to “the pro­posed To­co Port which will pro­vide fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties, a two storey ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ing, a ma­ri­na for 30 plea­sure ves­sels, boat lifts, car­go stor­age, 300-pas­sen­ger wait­ing lounge, cus­toms of­fice and a coast guard fa­cil­i­ty. A ho­tel will al­so be built to at­tract tourist”.  (http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/oil-and-gas-opportunities-for-toco-region-rowley-6.2.811289.b48ac265ec)
He went on, “The north­east re­gion of Trinidad has the po­ten­tial to be­come a gas and oil in­dus­try sim­i­lar to Point Ga­le­o­ta and Guayagua­yare which can pro­vide a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for cit­i­zens who live be­low the eco­nom­ic pyra­mid”.
He elaborated “We have drilling tak­ing place off­shores. To­co could eas­i­ly be­come a jump­ing off point to our east­ern re­serves as we ex­plore and as we are suc­cess­ful go­ing for­ward. The best part of the ocean is East of us.”
He added, “…the To­co port will be used to ser­vice the seabridge to To­ba­go, which spans 27 miles, us­ing the US $17.4 mil­lion Galleons Pas­sage”.
Flashback to 2000, July 28 to be exact and the same Keith Rowley, then in Opposition, spoke in Parliament about the Panday Government’s plan to build a port in Toco and have a Toco-Tobago ferry.
He had this to say: “The basis for this port is some Tobago to Toco ferry. Nobody in Tobago wants it; nobody in Toco wants it; nobody in Tobago or Toco appreciates it; but that is the grease to have the product created. Do you know who is doing this? The Cabinet. By saying that it is a Tobago to Toco ferry, the Government is giving the impression that it is a public purpose and, under that category, the Government is now going to proceed to take away people's homes to create this port.
  “So, here we have a situation where those who are living on the land enjoying it now, protected by the law, the Government is seeking to find a mechanism to acquire their land, then give that land to other private citizens to make money. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, this Toco ferry port has nothing to do with the people of Tobago and Toco.
“It has to do with creating a landing and jumping off point for the oil industry off the East Coast and the Government knows that. There are six oil companies now off the East Coast that can use that facility and if you look in the document, you will see it there. From BHP Petroleum, to Enron, to British Gas, to Exxon, to Elf Petroleum—all these are new names in our industry in the last 10 years—friends of the Government.
“That is supposed to make us all happy, then he tells me I must not talk about corruption and accuse the Government of corruption; we must only talk about mechanisms. We have mechanisms; we have laws and you all are breaking the laws to carry out your corrupt act. [Desk thumping]”. (Hansard, July 28, 2000, pp 775-6) http://www.ttparliament.org/hansards/hh20000728.pdf
The desk thumping recorded in Hansard was his Opposition colleagues supporting him lustily.
The Twirly Jig on a Fig Skin
So let’s examine, the utterances of 2000 and 2019.
In 2000, Keith Rowley accused the UNC of corruptly taking land from citizens to “create” a “jumping off point” for the East Coast oil industry. In 2019, the same Keith Rowley, will take land in the same place and give “access” and “Toco could easing become a jumping off point to our eastern reserves…” which “the Governent will go out to bid for..”. 
So taking Toco people’s land to create a jumping off point for gas multinational was corrupt in 2000 under UNC, but, miraculously it simply an “opportunity for the Toco region” in 2019 and under the PNM.
Sorry, Sir, if it was corrupt to give the multinationals a jumping off point in 2000, IT IS CORRUPT to give them the same jumping off point in 2019.
In 2000, Keith Rowley said “this Toco ferry port has nothing to do with the people of Tobago and Toco”. In 2019, the same Keith Rowley says the same ferry port “will be used to ser­vice the seabridge to To­ba­go” and close “the gap be­tween To­ba­go and To­co”.
What magical transformation! A useless corrupt project to build a port for a Toco-Tobago ferry service which nobody wanted in 2000 and which Keith Rowley vehemently opposed in 2000, suddenly becomes “…how you de­vel­op a coun­try...”in 2019.
How? Why? Because I Keith Rowley say so.
But he says, “I am in no pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test with these is­sues”.
So why the jig on a fig skin, the big about turn about the same port, the same ferry, the same jumping off point for the oil and gas barons?? WHY??
And as for corruption, you boast that the Galleons Passage “would be the per­fect trans­porta­tion means to im­prove the seabridge ser­vice”.
Which the same Galleons Passage procured by a sub-committee of the Cabinet contrary to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act which you have ensured is not operational, even though proclaimed a long time ago.
Smells like corruption to me.
Like you said on July 28, 2000, Dr. Keith Rowley you telling me “I must not talk about corruption and accuse the Government of corruption”.
If this was corruption then, add the improper procurement process for the Galleons Package, and this is worse corruption in 2019.
Then you in the Opposition, called on people to oppose the Government project to build the port in Toco.
Now, your Works Minister telling the same people to “fight back if the Opposition tries to stop the…project”.
I am confident the people of Toco-Sangre Grande, Tobago and the entire country will not fall for this kind of deception and be fooled by the political games that you politicians play.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Good Governance and an
End to Political Tricks
28 March 2019

Government-appointed Chairman of state-owned-enterprise Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd (TPHL) which replaced Petrotrin announced moves to put Paria Fuel Trading, a TPHL subsidiary, up for sale.
Chairman Espinet suggested that Paria Fuel is unprofitable and not of strategic importance.
Once Espinet’s announcement of issuing Request for Proposals for purchase of Paria, appeared in the national media, the Energy Minister responded almost immediately declaring Paria Fuel is a ‘strategic State asset’ and divestment of the company “is not within the current mandate of the Government to TPHL”.
In a follow-up article Energy Minister Franklin Khan said he had directed Paria Fuel’s parent company, Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd (TPH), “to withdraw and retract any advertisement or Request for Proposals that may have been inadvertently issued for the sale of the Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd.”.
So here is a tale that goes like this – This must go. We selling it. No No No…you eh selling nutten.
This would be a comedy if were not so serious.
How does a Government-appointed agent decide to dispense with a state-owned company, apparently without the approval of the relevant Minister or Government?
How does that Chairman issue an RFP for sale of a state-owned-enterprise (SOE) contrary to the policy of the Government and without the line Minister not even being aware of this decision or action?
Sounds like an Antsy story of the dog and its tail and who wagging who; if that is what really happened.
Either the Chairman seriously overstepping his authority or the Minister totally out of the loop.
Whichever it may be, if that is the truth at all and not just the parody for public consumption, there is a bigger question.
The Public Procurement law which remains on paper only also directs how the disposal of state assets is to be conducted and accounted for.
The fact that his law remains unimplemented facilitates these bizarre episodes of arbitrary dealing with Public Property to facilitate Private Right to the detriment of Public Right.
Let us not lose sight of this most vital matter under the glare of contrived drama.
Unless we are all totally stupid, no one can believe, based on what we know about how Government and State business is done, based on our own experience of these matters, that an RFP for the sale of an SOE can be issued ‘inadvertently’- by mistake or vaps.
Or, is it a case that the tail (Chairman) is not just wagging the dog (the Government) but the tail is acting on the instructions of the Dog Owner – the 1% controllers of economic and political power – the Parasitic Oligarchy.
We have been told another tale – that the state is a neutral entity standing above particular interests within the body politic.
The truth is that the state is an instrument of the rich and powerful to facilitate their control and safeguard their interests.
Sometimes those that the state serves decide to take matters into their own hands or the hands of particular agents they recruit.
If Espinet was in fact acting very deliberately on the instructions of the Private Right Interest, this spells a most serious step in the direction of the Parasitic Oligarchy seeking to impose its dictate on society directly (without the intermediary of its state apparatus).
This development calls for the staunchest vigilance and action to prevent the establishment of a draconian and authoritarian form of rule based on Private Right over Public Right that the world knows as Fascism.
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society.
19 March 2019
 
 

Today, 49 unarmed, defenceless men, women and children engaged in religious activity in 2 mosques in New Zealand were brutally and callously slaughtered by one or more white supremacist, racist, fascist extremists.
The savage immigrant-hating gunman livestreamed his deadly gun assault and massacre of worshippers at a Christchurch mosque.
This is the latest atrocity committed by extreme right-wing elements claiming to be defending people of European descent from being ‘replaced’ or crowded out by immigrants or immigrants.  
This particular xenophobic supremacist bearing all kinds of symbols of Hitlerite fascism, even claimed that his mission of hate and barbarity was approved by another racist who slaughtered 77 people, including mostly young people in Norway in 2011.
His “manifesto” even suggests that he found support in Donald Trump’s apologist statements describing US white supremacists as ‘having good people among them’.

The New 21st Century Fascism

Many think of the fascism of the Axis Powers which arose in the 1930’s as well as the rising fascism of the present period as being about murderous crusades carried out under the inspiration of dogmas of various types.
Frequently, it is suggested that some individual or group or a whole society becomes or became lunatics and begin killing people.
The suggestion is sown that fascists are just some heavy-booted, lunatic fringe and fascism exits when people are physically killed.
 To be real, however, we must recognise that once we believe something or accept a statement, position, analysis or concept without questioning the fundamentals involved, the soil of fascism is fertilised.
For example, “A view of the world is presented that is centred on fears of “national suicide” and civilisational decline, in which whites are demographically overwhelmed by “inferior” peoples, minorities and immigrants” as a 2016 publication titled “No, this isn’t the 1930s – but yes, this is fascism, pointed out.
The bogeyman of ‘international communism’ and the racism of non-Aryan inferiority of the 1930s and 40s are today’s Islamic terrorism and xenophobia “inferior” peoples, minorities and immigrants threatening the ‘replacement’ of the white ‘civilisation’.
The essence is the same unfounded cultivated fears of national threat that is used to promote appeals to ‘patriotism’, defence of the homeland, safeguarding the nation against immigrant or refugee take-over.
This Nazi ideological conditioning is the veneer for the descent into a ‘democracy’ reduced to the tyranny of shrinking minorities who find emotional satisfaction in a violent, resentful rhetoric while their narrowly-elected representatives strip away their rights and persecute their neighbours. 
This is the danger is we accept that vicious extremists and terrorists like this shock trooper who began his video-broadcast slaughter with the words “Let get this party started.” are “nationalists” of some kind, or defenders of some ‘threatened’ minority, or some righteous crusader against Islamic extremism.
Racists and fascists and the champions of xenophobia and hate who are their apologists have nothing good or useful to offer society or the world.
Seventy years ago, the world celebrated the defeat of fascism and vowed never to allow its return. Those who are compromising with its rise today or refuse to condemn it outright are exposing our societies and the world to grave danger.
Racists and fascists must never be allowed to inflict that kind of damage on humanity again.
Racists and fascists (however they disguise themselves) have NO right to speak or organise. No quarter must be surrendered to them, nor their savage potential underestimated.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society and Against
Racism and Fascism of
All kinds.
15 March 2019