IS KEITH ROWLEY A LIAR (OR DOES HE ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH)?

 Now that I have your attention, what do you think? Is our Prime Minister a liar or does he always tell us the truth? Does he tell us the truth sometimes but lies at others? If so, when do you think that he tells the truth and when do you think that he lies? Why does he lie (if he does) and when he does lie,  does he tell us the truth  at other times? If so, how can we tell when he is lying or when he is telling us the truth? Put another way, can we trust him to tell us the truth at all times?

This, believe it or not, is a serious question. We need to be certain that our leaders (not just Dr. Rowley ... all of our leaders) will tell us the truth all the time. And the reason that this post is concentrating on Dr. Rowley at the moment is because he is the Prime Minister. Except for the names and a few other changes the same or similar questions would apply also to Mrs. Persad-Bissessar. So, please don't mix the apples with the oranges. Let's deal with one leader at a time.

Now, last week Dr. Rowley at a public meeting said that a plane had been sabotaged. Apparently, according to Dr. Rowley, some wires had been cut. Obviously, if this is true then it is a most serious report. People could have been killed when the plane crashed ... I presume that the reason for cutting the wires was to cause the plane to crash.  But was this report true? Or was the statement made for some other purpose? If there was another purpose for the statement to be made then what could that purpose have been? Some persons have suggested that Dr. Rowley was hinting that it (the sabotage) had been done by UNC supporters. Now, to be fair, I didn't get that from his statement and if that was his intention then it passed over my head like the proverbial Concord jet. I don't know where those persons could have got that from or how they could possibly have arrived at that conclusion. But questions do abound. For example, why was this not reported before? When was the sabotage discovered? Who discovered it? Is there video footage? If so, can we see it? If not, why not? And so on. I could list a dozen more questions that need to be answered.

And yes, it is important that all the questions are answered. For example, was it a Caribbean Airlines plane? A private plane? What (besides killing people by causing the plane to crash) was the purpose of the sabotage? Who stood to gain from this if it was a CAL plane? If it was a private plane who wanted to kill the owner? Who is the owner and why would somebody want to kill him?

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Dr. Rowley has made what can only best be described as rather curious remarks. For example, do you remember earlier this year when the Vice President of Venezuela came over to Trinidad with some PDVSA executives? We were told (by Dr. Rowley) that they came to discuss the COVID epidemic! Frankly, I didn't and still don't believe that. That explanation simply doesn't make sense. Do I know what they  came to discuss? No, though I have my suspicions which are probably better left unexpressed at this time. So? Were we lied to? What was the reason that they came? To discuss COVID? Really? But our health professionals were not present. So? Were we lied to? Why? And, for the record, these questions are asked 'open ended'. If there is a good explanation or explanations then great! But surely, we are entitled to answers?

Of course, the most "famous" example of Dr. Rowley's rather curious allegations is the scandal known as emailgate where a number of Cabinet Ministers in the UNC Government were accused of conspiring to murder a journalist. But after what felt like a million years of investigations the case was quietly dropped as there was absolutely no evidence other than the copies of the alleged emails produced by Dr. Rowley in Parliament. Dr. Rowley's supporters have insisted that the copies are true, but no evidence has ever been produced to suggest that they are.

And then there is the case of the FSO Nabarima. A release from Dr. Rowley's office says that the ship is not listing and is certainly not sinking. But photographs and videos on social media suggest otherwise. So? Is it true that the ship is NOT sinking or listing badly? Certain eyewitnesses say that it is listing badly and is in danger of sinking.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. Is our Prime Minister a liar or does he always tell us the truth or does he tell us the truth only sometimes and lies to us at other times? If he lies to us only sometimes, is this important? How do we know or trust that he is telling us the truth on important matters if he is lying to us only sometimes and telling us the truth at other times? Or does he tell us the truth all the time?

A large part of the problem is because our mainstream media is simply not doing its job. The hard questions are not being asked and all three daily newspapers are clearly biased in favour of the Government. But that's another story!

RACISM IN T&T (and its effect on our politics)

 It is a fact that we are in deep economic trouble. Our debt to GDP ratio is now at around 89.6 percent. Not too long again and it will be over 100 percent. The result is going to be more lay-offs, more unemployment, more slowing down and less money to go around. On Sunday last I received three videos of house break-ins in three different areas of Trinidad : Freeport, Valsayn and Westmoorings. The videos were all disturbingly similar - young black men scouting the area before jumping the respective fences.

Now, my take away from these videos (as well as from the countless reports that I keep getting) is that the very severe economic downturn is hurting the black communities worse than the other communities across the land. The problem is that nobody wants to say or acknowledge this because (heaven forbid) any comments could be taken as being racist or being influenced by racism. To which I say, absolute rubbish!

We need to look at our country squarely, warts and all! We need to acknowledge honestly what is going on and who is being hurt. Okay. Everybody is being hurt, but we need to look at who is hurting the most. We can't fix anything if we continue to avoid dealing with the problems that confront us.

Our leaders on BOTH sides of the political divide play the race card 24/7. And don't pretend that it is not true. I have seen and heard countless times, subtle and not so subtle remarks being made on BOTH political platforms, not only by the respective leaders but by their various supporters. Perhaps one of the worst was the "Calcutta ship" remark made at a political rally in Tobago some time ago, and the leader of the particular party who spoke after the remark was made, did not condemn that remark there and then. What was the message to his supporters when he failed to condemn the remark? Was it not that he agreed with it? Of course it was! Either that or he calculated that such a dog whistle would help him get out the vote. Either way, he was as wrong as hell!

Everybody knows that if you are Indian you must vote UNC and if you are African you must vote PNM. And then you have one or two Indians in the PNM who are there for their own personal reasons saying things to the effect that all Indians are not bad and the "good" Indians vote PNM! When I heard that I shook my head in dismay. Unbelievable. And yet there has been no condemnation of these terrible remarks ... at least, none from the PNM side! So? What is the message there from the PNM for their failure to condemn those highly publicized remarks?

Look, a person should join a political party because he/she agrees with its policies and the principles for which it stands. So? What are the policies and the principles of both the PNM and the UNC? How or where are they different? And don't tell me that one is more honest than the other. That simply is not true. The allegations of corruption on both sides are huge. How are their principles and policies different? Or is it that corruption is acceptable because "we" are doing it or "we" are stealing or stole less than "they" did?

Look, it's like having a business that is making a million dollars a year but the manager is stealing a hundred thousand dollars a year. So, the owner of the business changes managers. The new manager continues to steal the same amount as the old manager did, but instead of making an annual million dollar profit he loses a million dollars a year. Obviously stealing is bad and ought to be condemned, but isn't the owner better off with the first rather than the second manager? And shouldn't we also look at that?

So? Besides race, why do you support and vote for the party of your choice? A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and for us, I most respectfully suggest that the first step will be to stamp out the racism in our society.. But in order to do so, we are going to have to be honest with ourselves. Only then can we really solve our problems. And that means that you have to be honest with yourself. But that is always difficult, isn't it?

BENCHMARKS

 It is impossible to comment intelligently on Mr. Imbert's latest budget without being accused by one side or the other of being biased. Those who think it was a good budget will be criticized by those who think it was a lousy one ... and vice versa. In true Trini style these criticisms will be laced with personal insults and other invectives.

But what is noticeable is the complete lack of benchmarks. Indeed, nobody over the last six budgets seems to have paid attention to this point. How can anyone say that the Minister will fail if we don't have agreed benchmarks setting out what we expect/hope to happen, say, within the next six months? The next nine months? The next twelve months? What is the measure of success against which we are placing the Governments economic proposals and plans for the next year? Will it be, for example, the creation of a thousand new jobs? Or will it be considered a success if no more jobs are lost? If 'only' a thousand jobs are lost?

I have been listening very carefully to both Government supporters as well as it's opponents. If you fall in the former camp the message is that it is the best that can be done in all the circumstances in this COVID and falling oil and gas prices era. If you fall in the latter camp you will say that the budget was lackluster and has done nothing to give our citizenry any hope whatsoever.

So? What is the truth? I don't know. I'm not an economist and I find that what little brain I have seems to work very differently from the ways that the brains of those who occupy the lofty financial heights of our economy do regardless of whichever side they fall. But I have always found that the best questions are always the ones that go to the root of whatever problem those questions are considering. And I have always found that it is always best to ask what exactly are the benchmarks? What will show us before the end of your experiment (or whatever) whether or not you are succeeding or failing? 

It is unquestionable that we are in deep, deep trouble. And we are looking to our Government (and yes, it is 'our' Government whether you voted for them or not) for leadership. Only the most crass and unpatriotic are hoping that our Government will fail. But, it cannot be unpatriotic to ask them to explain not only their plans, but, what  they say will be the benchmarks by which we can judge them as to whether they are failing or succeeding. And, please; I don't want to hear about the UNC and how they might have done better or worse. Dr. Rowley and his people are in charge ... whether you like it or not! It is up to them to lead us out of this morass in which we find ourselves. I have said it before and I'll say it again: the only test of leadership is to lead, and to lead vigoursly. So, to the Rowley regime I say two things: the first is to lead, follow or get out of the way. The second thing is to ask them what are their benchmarks? What are their standards by which we can judge them as to whether they are succeeding or failing?

A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

That we are in deep, deep "doo-doo" is unquestionable. The problem is that even before this Coronavirus business knocked everybody sideways we were in deep trouble with falling energy prices, rising unemployment and plant closures (not to mention the closing down of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery). That is why an active imagination is so important - not to assume the worst but to prepare for all eventualities.

In talking with energy experts over the last few years they all sang from the same song book that oil and gas prices would go down ... and that the drop would be fairly radical. But apart from some 'lyrics' about deals with Venezuela and the Dragon Gas Fields the truth is that the Rowley led regime in the last five years appears to have done nothing. Oh! The Prime Minister did go to Houston and came back boasting that he had made a great deal on gas prices only to have big downstream users of natural gas at Point Lisas close their doors because they couldn't afford the new prices. The end result has been that the National Gas Company (NGC), once the crown jewel in the State's business enterprises, is now in dire financial straits.

And now? Now we are faced with version 2 of the Rowley regime which looks very much like version1 with the only change in the line up of top ministers being the removal and replacement of the hapless and hopeless Dennis Moses, the former Foreign Affairs Minister. But wasn't it Albert Einstein who once famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?

No. Frankly, I don't expect any new or innovative thinking to fall from the lips of Finance Minister Colm Imbert on Monday next. He has shown himself to be devoid of any imagination whatsoever and all the evidence points inexorably to a complete failure of imagination on his part. If I am wrong then tell me: what will your bench marks be for the next twelve months that will show that at least we are on the right road? But if I am right, then I predict that things will simply get worse. Haiti has already shown that there is no 'bottom' at which a country can reach and go down no further. That things are worse today than they were a year ago is unquestionable. And while it is true that a lot of this fall in our fortunes was caused by the %$#&*#@% virus, not all of it was; a lot of it was also caused by a complete and disastrous failure of imagination on the part of Dr. Rowley & Co.