WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

According to a newspaper report this morning (Tuesday 4th June, 2019) some 2,500 Venezuelans have registered under the TT Government's amnesty/registration program. According also to newspaper reports the Government appears to be quite pleased with the exercise currently going on. So? If all the reports are true, then we should all sit back and pat the Government on its proverbial back, shouldn't we?


Here's where I say 'hold it sheriff, she's heading for the strawberry patch'! You see, the government has said that it will hold this registration exercise over a 14 day period. Now, the exercise started last Friday, 4 days ago (not counting today). In other words, an average of 625 Venezuelans were registered every day for the last 4 days. So, if we extrapolate those numbers out we get 8,750 (14 x 8,750). In other words we can expect a little less than 10,000 Venezuelans to register.


So? Question: assuming that there is no big rush at the end of the registration period and the average daily registration climbs to, say, 700 per day, that number (9,800) still comes to less than 10,000. Does this mean (a) that the majority of Venezuelans here are not registering, or (b) the reports of TT being swamped by illegal immigration are woefully inaccurate, or (c) a bit of both? My personal bet (with absolutely nothing to back it up except my gut) is that the answer is (c).


So, assuming (but not accepting) that my gut is right, then the question is 'why'? Why are the majority of Venezuelans not registering? Why are the reports inaccurate?


In answer to the first 'why' I think that the reason that the majority are not registering is a simple one: a lack of trust. Frankly, given all the past actions and statements of "jefes" in the TT Government, would you trust them NOT to turn you over to Maburro & Co. if you had fled that murderous regime fearing for your life ... literally? I'm not sure that I would.


Then, onto item (b) ... the inaccurate reporting of the immigration problem. Again, let me be clear: I have nothing to go on but my gut in this. To the best of my knowledge there are no reasonably accurate reports as to the extent of the problem. But I do believe (my gut again) that we are indeed being swamped by illegal immigration. What I don't know is how bad is it? How much of a problem do we have?


It seems that (unsurprisingly) the problem is much more acute in the South than anywhere else. But neither the authorities nor the main stream media (who you might think both  have the resources to answer these type of questions) have apparently not  bothered to get any hard data on this.


Let's understand something clearly: assuming that our population figures from the Central Statistical Office are reasonably accurate, we are a nation of approximately 1.4 million souls. Now, assuming that we have somewhere around 100,000 legal or illegal Venezuelans coming over here that means that we have an almost 10 percent increase in our population overnight! No nation on this planet can suffer such an increase in its population in such a short space of time and not have disastrous consequences. 


But our Government's solutions seem to be deflect, deflect and deflect. The root cause of our problem is the murderous, narco driven dictatorship of Messrs. Maburro & Co. For crying out loud, when are we going to wake up and smell the coffee? Until then, you know exactly what's wrong with this picture!