Thriving on contradictions

Trevor Sudama San Fernando
Jan 11, 2021
Jan 11, 2021 Updated Jan 12, 2021
1 min to read

This country seems to thrive on contradictions which appear to defy rational thought and action but with which the majority are quite happy.

Here are some examples:-

(1) The Government righteously pledges to fight corruption yet emasculates a major piece of anti-corruption legislation.

(2) The Government proposes a flurry of new laws to be passed by Parliament while the majority of existing legislation is not being implemented.

(3) The Government expresses serious concern for the education sector yet decreases the allocation for tertiary education and increases that for Community Environment Enhancement and Protection Programme (CEPEP) and grass-cutting.

(4) There is no money to repair the vast majority of roads which are in a deplorable condition causing death, accident, hazard and community isolation yet hundreds of millions can be found to build interchanges, overpasses, walk-overs and highways in remote regions.

(5) While hundreds of thousands of citizens suffer from a grossly deficient or non-existent water supply, millions of gallons of water are permitted to leak out of the pipeline transmission system.

(6) There is voluminous discourse about the revival of agriculture and food security yet thousands of acres of formerly Caroni Ltd’s agricultural lands lie idle.

(7) While for many years the energy sector has continued to decline as the major source of vital foreign exchange earnings, alternative sources of such earnings have not even been identified let alone developed.

(8) Almost exclusive focus is placed on containing a contagious virus which can cause a couple of hundred deaths, yet little attention is paid to the preventable deaths and disability of thousands with non-communicable diseases.

(9) The Government expresses grave concern about the huge and unmanageable influx of illegal Venezuelan migrants to this country but continues to support the regime in Venezuela which is largely responsible for the massive exodus.

(10) The country’s borders are securely locked down for the unlucky thousands of nationals stranded overseas but opened on a scientific basis for the lucky few with connections.

(11) Government leaders use the most crude and damning language to vilify their opponents and critics but are vehemently outraged by criticisms directed to them.

(12) While an Afro-Trinidadian party has been in unchallenged power for over 50 of the last 64 years, it is now being accused of engaging in and condoning discrimination against Afro-Trinidadian communities and students.

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Mr Politician, Sah

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