CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

The amazing escape from jail by Vicki Boodram earlier this week is a graphic illustration of how bad things are in Trinidad & Tobago. For those who may have just tuned in, Ms. Boodram was in jail on charges that she had defrauded a lot of people out of several million dollars for tickets for  cruise and other travel tickets which her travel agency was paid for but never provided. Her bail had been set at something like TT$1 million and she had been sent to the Remand Yard pending her trial for fraud. This was all quite some time ago. (Yet another example of the incompetent justice system taking too long to try an accused person ... but that's another story!)


In any case, according to newspaper reports two police officers (a man and a woman) showed up at the Remand Yard on Tuesday evening with what appeared to be legitimate papers from the Tunapuna Magistrates' Court requiring her presence there for a night court hearing. The Prison officers looked at the seemingly legitimate papers and then released her into the custody of the two police officers who apparently took her home and left her there! The next day she is reported to have turned up at the Siparia Magistrates' Court and left a message for her attorney that she couldn't attend there because she had to be in another matter in Port of Spain. And then she disappeared. Nobody knows where she is!


Now, those are the reported facts. You don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercule Poirot to see that the story doesn't add up and that there are a host of unanswered questions that give rise to a lot of very ugly suspicions. But those suspicions are not the point of this post. What needs to be pointed out  is that except for the names and a few other changes, this story, this terrible story (and it is terrible; on the face of it the case against Ms. Boodram certainly appears to be very strong and she certainly appears to have a lot of questions to answer; a lot of money is missing.) is identical to a lot of other stories that we are being fed with on what feels like an almost daily basis.


For example, let's take this Chinese visit story: we were told at the beginning of November that the Prime Minister was going to China in order to attend a conference of ten world leaders. This was for November 30th. When people started asking questions about this conference we (the general public) were told that (a) The Prime Minister's trip was postponed to late Spring next year and (b) by asking the questions that we had asked we were embarrassing the Chinese Government. To which all I can say is what?!? How in the name of heaven can it be wrong for the population of a democracy to question statements from its leaders? It is interesting to note that other than being told that the trip was postponed and essentially that we were all too "farse" to question the trip, we have had no answers at all to the original questions. Why?


Then let's take the 'fake oil' scandal as another example. Here is what is in the public domain: somewhere in the order of $100 million has been overpaid to a company called A & V Drilling. The owner of that company is reported to be a personal friend of the Prime Minister, His daughter (who is also the secretary of that company) was up until she resigned this week a Government backbench senator. Now, there are a whole host of questions that have been asked about this, none of which have been answered.  And nobody has been arrested or charged. It seems that the police are still investigating. As to how long they will "investigate' is, of course, another story.


Are you beginning to see a pattern here?  In other words, the average person sees what is perceived on the face of it to be wrong doing by persons at the top ... or most certainly, acts and statements that require explanations ... but no satisfactory explanations for what has happened are ever forthcoming.  And that's what is happening here. Nothing is ever properly answered and the curtain is drawn down and the country is told to move on. So, we move on. Next point!


Those of us old enough to remember will recall the headlines that were created after one Carnival when a Roman Catholic priest played mas'. The next year a popular calypso came out "If the Priest Could Play, Who is We?" And that's the point. If those at the top don't have to answer for anything, why should those in the middle and the bottom have to answer?


This society is heading for trouble. You can see it coming. You can smell it. You can taste it. Can it be avoided? Yes? I certainly hope so. Will it be avoided? I don't know, and that is what has me so worried.