De bell ring! De bell ring!
In the middle of the Opposition Leader’s reply to the Budget Speech, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Party-in-Power, took to his Facebook account to “announce” the date of the Local Government Elections 2019.
The PM exercised that remnant of prerogative power of the Monarch preserved via the English Parliamentary system and imposed on this longest-lasting Crown Colony in the Caribbean region of the English Empire and lodged in that office of power.
The fact that the PM did not only pull the date ‘out of his back pocket’ using the usurpation (prerogative) of the power to decide election dates was compounded by the way it was done on this occasion.
This social media announcement and the timing evoked loud shrieks of ‘disrespect’ among other politicians aspiring to the very office of PM for the most part. Most of the electorate already badgered by the impositions from the highest elected office were no more offended by the means used in this instance.
The context in which this social media announcement appeared also generated some verbal joisting between the principal combatants in the impending electoral battle each side accusing of using the Budget as an instrument of electioneering.
The yellow band branded the Budget Speech with its sprinkling of promised pay increases and other ‘benefits’ most conveniently timetabled for the day just prior to the announced election date as an ‘Election Budget’.  The red band accused the Leader of the yellow of electioneering because her Budget reply consisted largely of an alternative economic ‘manifesto’ 2020-2025.
One posse’s election budget is another’s electioneering apparently,
The platforms were mounted right there in the Parliament and the respective Budget presentations were the opening salvo in Platform Talk LGE 2019-GE 2020 in the extended triple election season running 2020-2021 of LGE-GE-THAE.
For the red all-ah-we-in-dis-together posse, the platform talk shifted to Piggott’s Corner and Arima Town Hall within 48 hours labelled ‘post budget discussions’. But the reality of LGE campaign kick-off was glaring.  
With the loudspeakers operating at full blast, it was time to jump up high and jump down low and shake yuh manifesto because it’s party time as Bally put it in his classic “Party Time Again”. (https://youtu.be/AkxvpJJ3wJs).
And true to form ‘dirty tricks just to tie up me and you’ were in full effect.
Barbs of allegation were flying left and right. Everything from murder conspiracies to death threats to fraudulent tampering with WASA ‘bills’ were launched from the lobster claw Heliconia podium instigated by no lesser than the DJ himself.
From political opponent to ordinary citizen, none was spared. Accusations abounded with no evidence or cogent explanation even without the cover of Parliamentary privilege.
So, what is this all about again?
As one radio ad reminds us, it is time to elect your Local Government Representatives.
But the platform antics tell another story. It is time to demonise your opponents or anyone perceived as one; to launch all manner of bombastic propaganda; to sully characters even of simple citizens and “promises of utopia and song… just to get yuh vote”.
There is no reference to the fact that Local Government Reform promised last ‘party time’ in 2016 and about which DJ Keith told us that last election was a ‘referendum’, has not happened in the full 3-year term (reminiscent of similar failed promises by DJ Patrick before him).
Transparency and accountability remain buzzwords devoid of content.
Instead, we are asked to put a party in ‘control’ of our 14 Regional Corporations with absolutely nothing new to offer burgesses by way of representation, a real say in decision-making that affects their living conditions at fundamental levels or otherwise.
Some have suggested that this cycle of ‘party time’ is another referendum – this time on the performance of the ruling party in the seat of national Government. Others claim it is a test of popularity which will be used by DJ Keith to decide if to proceed urgently to round 2 – GE 2020 early in the new year.
Whatever their motives, this LGE ‘party time’ has nothing to do with securing or improving the empowerment of the burgesses in Local or Community Governance.
So, on we go with the platform talk with a foreboding of a new depth of decadence in its content camouflaged with talk of ‘new society’ but, really all for the purpose of preserving the status quo of the archaic electoral-political process of party politics and medieval privilege.
Hopefully, the light of this Divali will allow us to see the way out of this darkness.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society and Empowerment of
the People.
October 27, 2019

The Royal Prerogative has been defined as ‘The special rights, powers, and immunities to which the Crown alone is entitled under the common law.’.
In the development of the British political system, there has been a pull and tug battle over the power exercised by the Monarch and that of the Parliament which came into being when the capitalist manufacturing class became the dominant power in the economic order.
The Parliament and ‘Representative’ democracy replaced the rule of the Monarch which existed under the medieval power of the feudal lords.
In the 1606 Case of Impositions the power of the king to impose duty on imported goods was challenged, but upheld by the Court. Parliament then passed a law, the Petition of Rights, so that taxes could only be imposed by Parliamentary decision.
While Parliament prevailed to the extent that laws made by it (Acts) cannot be altered using prerogative powers, most of the residue of the powers of the monarch are now exercised by the Prime Minister and the Executive.
In T&T, the survivals of the Monarchs powers have been shared between the President and Prime Minister under our Constitution, with some controls by Parliament.
The summoning and proroguing of Parliament have fallen into the PM’s hands and has led to the Head of Government having election dates “in their back, side or other pockets”. The PM has exclusive power to appoint or fire Ministers and generally because of the majority in the Parliament, also controls the law-making agenda of Parliament.
The President retains the assent to Bills and formally has power over the armed forces and declaration of states of emergency and even in granting of national awards. But, in most of the President’s functions, the decisions are really made by the Cabinet directed by the PM.
So, the Prime Minister as Head of Government has inherited most of the powers that once belonged to the Monarch and determines the actions of the Parliament using his elected majority.
The President, as Head of State, has been left with almost none of the powers which the Monarch possessed as Head of State of the old colonial power.
Control of PrerogatIve Power in our ConsitUtion
In the run-up to Independence in 1962, just one year after a very divisive election which involved violence and a state of emergency, the most consequential battle over the content of the Constitution ensued.
While this involved a serious and contentious struggle over the limiting of the remnants of prerogative power in the hands of the Prime Minister, it has been presented in the narrative of our history as a battle of the races with the PNM and DLP, as ruling party and Opposition involved.
The Constitution was drafted by the government unilaterally without consultation with the Opposition, and even the conduct of the Queen’s Hall conference was chaired by the PM in such a way as to keep the Opposition from meaningful contribution.
The Opposition, and others in the society made an effort to place checks on the powers of the Prime Minister, to make the EBC more independent and to limit the monarchical prerogative power over the Public Service of the PM and Government through the Service Commissions, to have the Senate more independent and to increase the special majority for amendment of some parts of the Constitution 3/4 instead of 2/3.
This was a constructive and legitimate fight for limiting the residual powers of the monarch in the hands of an all-powerful Prime Minister.
It was only at the last minute, at the Marlborough House talks in London and with tensions in the country almost at boiling point that Williams relented and accepted many of the major points that the Opposition had been calling for.
The concerns for limiting the power of the PM and Cabinet were presented in divisive racist terms to hide the real content of the struggle over the Constitutional provisions.
What emerged was an arrangement with checks on the power to declare and continue States of Emergency, on the control over the electoral process, the Public Service and other aspects of prerogative powers in the hands of the PM and Cabinet.
The Executive has never given up its desire and drive for more power since 1962.
The Ministers have fought long and hard to wrench the power to hire and fire from the Service Commissions, demanding their abolition and undermining them with as much as 75% of the employees in Ministries and Agencies being now contract employees, not appointed by any Commission.
The proposals for an Executive President which have surfaced on several occasions are aimed largely at consolidating all remaining prerogative power in a single office.
The recent episodes of the Cabinet usurping of the procurement processes from the Port Authority Board and the HDC-CGGC contract fiasco are also elements of that yearning.
The desire and machinations to consolidate the old monarchical powers in the single hand of an unrestricted political figure has been and remains a dangerous aspect of the development of our governance in the hope of returning to a medieval construct.
This retrograde anti-democratic tendency toward autocratic rule must be resisted at all costs.

Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society.
5 October 2019

WHODUNNIT – MYSTERY LAND
Some time ago it was popular language to refer to mystery or even horror films in which the scriptwriters left the revelation of the culprit of some gruesome act to the last few frames of the movie keeping audiences in enraptured suspense to the very end.
It appears the old blockbuster movie writers have crept into the ceaseless drama that is our political landscape.
Just a look at today’s headlines take us into the mysterious world that appears more incomprehensible than the last instalment: Who did it? The First Leak, Plot to Clear Marlene.
The hot topics – Ownerless HDC-CGGC Sweetheart Deal, Who Leaked the Leak to Person of Interest in 6-year old Investigation? NiQuan Does What Petrotrin and Government Couldn’t – Or Could They?
Well behind it all are the same old worn out themes – Corruption, No Transparency or Accountability, Private Sector Business Acumen Superior to State.
THAT HDC-CGGC DEAL
A classic whodunnit tale if ever there was one.
The largest ever housing contract involving the state’s Housing Corporation, and NOBODY knows how it got there – total mystery.
The sweeteners including tax exemptions, immediate upfront payment of the entire contract cost, most expensive per unit floor space, guarantees against for loss for termination and more goodies.
Yet, the Finance Ministry, Attorney General, Housing Minister, the PM who was Housing Minister when the outline agreement was finalised, the entire Cabinet, the HDC Board, like Shultz in the Stalag 13 comedy tv all claim – I see nothing; I know nothing!!!
Some days ago, I asked: “The HDC is accountable to at least one JSC. Cabinet is accountable to Parliament. Can we expect that Parliament will investigate the HDC-Chinese Co contract and it’s cancellation by Cabinet?”.
Today, a columnist hoped that the “excellent opportunity to pursue transparency and accountability” would be grasped by Government.
NiQuan RAISES $120M US
Remember the failed Gas-to-Liquids Plant that was part of the disastrous upgrade project at Petrotrin? The same project which saddled the company with an enormous $13B debt that it couldn’t repay and to its closure and a mothballed refinery.
Remember that the same badly engineered plant was sold in another deal to buyers just months before the closure of the refinery and the new owners of this plant were guaranteed a supply of Gas to turn into Liquids.
So, the mysterious plot thickens, the new owners can raise more than the $100M US they said it would take to get the plant up and running by the end of 2019. But, the Government and Petrotrin couldn’t raise a cent and the new owner does not own a single gas field or well.
 I almost asked where are they getting gas from to process, since there isn’t enough to supply the gas plants in Pt. Lisas and ALNG Train One is threatened. But I remembered that NiQuan with a former State Board Chairman aboard was guaranteed gas through a new state company (not NGC) as part of the deal.
This smells kind of like the honey in the HDC-CGGC deal. Again, I am forced to remember the 4-year old amended Procurement Law is still not effective and anything goes.
THE LEAK, THE LEAK - NOT WASA
A Government Minister, under investigation in a million-dollar pay-out to an unregistered phantom company for the past six (6) years is arrested and charged with corruption charges in a tight-lipped ‘secret’ operation that periodically held media attention over the 6-year period.
Suddenly, shortly before his departure on an overseas mission, the PM claiming again like Shultz – I know nothing, I see nothing, suddenly recalled that a month before the arrest the same Minister (fired on her third strike) confided in him that she was ‘tipped off’ of her pending or impending arrest by the Opposition Leader in the tea room or at an office or place unknown.
In dramatic style, the Opposition offers a counter-plot – this is all a ruse to clear the accused Minister by exposing Police bungling or collusion with Opposition to remove a Minister.
Well, why not? Wasn’t it another Opposition Leader who presented hand-written emails which the Police say “cannot be substantiated” to Parliament in what was not a plot to remove a sitting Prime Minister and other Ministers?
Hollywood eh have nothing on we!
Spy vs Spy and cloak and dagger Whodunnit in imitable Trini dramatic style designed to keep the audience glued to the screen and guessing who the real culprit is. Maybe the butler did it. Or the mysterious stranger.
So how do we make sense of all these mysterious revelations and intriguing plot machinations.
It has been suggested that such high matters of state are best left to those clothed with armour of Parliamentary privilege, not available to the common man or ordinary citizen whose tax dollars are footing the bill for all the sweetheart deals and Westwood Park style plot allegations and counter-allegations suited for Dallas or a Bollywood or Nollywood soap opera.
However, most simple folk are indeed capable of seeing right from wrong and knowing when corruption and political intrigue does not benefit their interests.
The suspense must be ended and We, the People, must demand not handouts from the PNM or UNC. We must demand accountability even at the risk of being charged for sedition for daring to question the powers-that-be and inciting disaffection when we should be justly damn vex at the games being played.
​
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society and Good
Governance.
15 September 2019