CROOKS AND MOOKS?

We are constantly bombarded with political promises that promise dramatic life improvement for us and/or relief from our troubles. These promises all come to us saying in essence that "if you vote for me/us then productivity will improve and you will live a happier life". In short, the promise is in one word - Nirvana. We also get pundits telling us that we will be better off if we vote for X instead of Y. Sometimes these pundits give us their reasoning - which is often faulty, but in the end simply goes back to the promises of Nirvana.

Don't buy it!

I was reminded of these promises and pundits this morning when I saw a newspaper article that reported a very prominent former (now retired) banker, Ron Harford, whose opinions I have always respected. Mr. Harford was reported as saying that if you have a choice in voting for a crook or a mook, then it is better to vote for the crook. Now, I can understand his reasoning: while you can be fairly certain that the crook will steal, the mook simply won't have any idea on how to fix things and because of his/her inefficiencies,  inabilities and total incompetence, the mook will simply make things worse. The crook, on the other hand, while stealing, will probably do somethings right, and therefore we will all benefit - not as much as could if the crook wasn't a crook, but still we would get some benefit. The erstwhile Mr. Harford did not identify anybody who he thought might be a crook or a mook.

So, in keeping with the erstwhile Mr. Harford's non-identification of anybody, I have only one question for him: what if the crook is also a mook?

THOSE FOREIGN TRIPS

 I have said it over and over again: there is only one reason for politics - only one reason for Governments : to make life better for the people! Full stop! There is no other reason!

So when Dr. Moonilal told his political supporters that following a Freedom of Information request it was revealed that between 20th September 2020 and 29th February 2024 - a period of a little over 3 years and 5 months -  the Prime Minister, the erstwhile Dr. Keith Christopher Rowley, had spent $10.6 million on foreign travel a reasonable question that needs to be answered is what benefit or benefits did Trinidad & Tobago get out of all these trips? There are some rather obvious supplementary questions such as how much money did T&T make on this $10.6 million investment, and who in the society  (apart from Caribbean Airlines which I presume is what the  Prime Minister travelled on) benefitted directly from these trips? Who benefitted indirectly from these trips? Indeed, did anybody in the country benefit from these trips? And if so, who and how did he/she benefit? What exactly was the return on our investment of more than $10 million?

You see, I consider myself reasonably well informed as to what is going on on T&T but I really can't say what tangible benefits were received by the country - whether in cash or otherwise - that might justify such a huge travel bill. And I certainly don't know who benefitted from these trips. Of course it is always possible that the country or some persons did benefit from these expensive trips. It is just that nobody seems to have answered (or even asked until now) the very basic questions. Isn't it time that our political leaders (on BOTH sides) account to us for everything that they say or do? Or should we be just content to let them do whatever they want? 

EID MUBARAK

 Eid Mubarak to everybody. On this rather auspicious and most important day, it might be a good time to consider a more rational approach to our public holidays - and Carnival Monday and Tuesday are included in this. You see, there are a lot of holidays that are purely secular (e.g., Indian Arrival Day and Emancipation Day). It is also obvious that certain religious holidays can't be moved (e.g., Today, Eid ul Fitr - which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan - Divali, and Easter. However, for all the rest - the secular, non-religious ones - why don't we celebrate the holiday on a particular Monday? 

Take, for example, the holiday of Indian Arrival Day which celebrates the arrival of the first Indians in Trinidad; this holiday is on the 30th May in every year. But when the 30th May falls on, say, a Tuesday or a Thursday, the country's productivity is adversely affected as many people make it a true long weekend by taking the Monday or Friday off. 

Now, how many of you have had a birthday fall on, say, a Wednesday but have had a party celebrating your birthday on either the Saturday night before your birthday or on the Saturday night after? In other words, what is important is the celebration which you have  to mark the occasion rather than the actual day itself. And I believe that just about everybody has done this at least once.

The point here is (and continuing with the example of Indian Arrival Day) why don't we have it on, say, the last Monday in May?  Or the first Monday in June? The whole idea of this holiday is to celebrate and honour the first people who arrived here and whose descendants have made a sterling contribution to our society. The honouring of our ancestors will be no less if it is not done on the exact day and will create  for everybody a long weekend.

And, please, I have only singled out one national holiday for the sake of brevity; but the point applies to every other secular holiday.

THE DEATH PENALTY

 With crime on the rise perhaps now is a good time to revisit our laws on the death penalty. So, question: what is the best deterrent for crime? Answer: the fear of getting caught along with the fear of being punished after you are caught, Both of these fears go together because if you get caught and you know that there will be a punishment of some kind then you are more likely not to break the particular law

You can test this hypothesis by looking at the behaviour of drivers when they know that the police are timing people who are speeding. Everybody slows down!

But we have on the books the draconian  death penalty for certain crimes, e.g., murder (although we haven't executed anybody recently). Yet still, despite this penalty, murders are on the rise, so the obvious question is why? The answer is equally obvious: if you commit a murder you have less than a 90 percent chance of being caught (and here I am talking about the "hits" and other similar types of crime and not those related, e.g., to murdering your spouse). And then, if you are caught the justice system is so inefficient that you can spend 10 years or more in jail before your matter comes up for trial and by then some of the witnesses could be dead or forgetful or unreliable. As a result, you get off and then might have a claim against the State for damages for wrongful imprisonment.

No. Our entire justice system needs a major overhaul - beginning with the police. If they can't (or won't) catch the criminals then what good are they? Why do we need them? Then the court system needs to be ramped up so that a person charged with a crime faces the court quickly - e.g., within 3 months, although I think that is probably too long. I mean, how would you feel if you were locked up for 3 months for a crime that you did not commit?

As a person who has had a beloved family member murdered and having full knowledge as to who at least 2 of the killers were (they were never caught or even charged - but that's another story) I know and subscribe unequivocally to the principle of the presumption of innocence - even for my cousin's murders. But, hey, his murderers effectively got away with it because of corruption and inefficiency in the police service.

We cannot bring down the crime rate to any kind of "acceptable" level unless we really tackle the 2 problems that I have highlighted here. Then we can look at the other problems.