LIES, RIP-OFFS AND CORRUPTION

I am beginning to come to the very reluctant conclusion that our society is hopelessly and helplessly mired in corruption. And I am not just talking about corrupt politicians (and God knows that we have more than our fair share on ALL sides of the political divide) but I am talking about everybody.

Let's get the politicians out of the way first: this firetruck issue, for example,  stinks to high heaven. In a million years you cannot justify to me a cost of  $6.7 million (or more than a million US dollars) to haul a truck out of a ravine/ditch/hole/whatever of approximately fifty feet. That is as bad as Gary Hunt's $2 million flag ... or worse, because the obvious thievery was more. And I am fed up with all those PNM hypocrites who kept absolutely silent during the excesses of the Manning regime who are now holier than thou and crying corruption every chance that they get!

I am also fed up with Keith Rowley's endless bleatings about corruption when the Landate matter is still not  resolved. (For those who have forgotten, Dr. Rowley was involved in a land development project in Tobago about 10 years ago. The sub-contractor on that project was a large company called NH International which is owned by his good friend, Emile Elias. A commission of enquiry found that materials and equipment had been wrongfully removed by NH International without the knowledge or permission of the engineer from a site where the Scarborough General Hospital was being built by NH International, and taken to Dr. Rowley's development. The commission of enquiry recommended that there be a police investigation to determine whether or not NH International "had commited any breaches of the Larceny Act", in other words whether or not the materials had been stolen. No such investigation has ever taken place, and the question has to be asked: why? No good explanation has ever been given!)

I am fed up with so called paragons of virtue committing acts that cannot be justified and pretending that these actions are all right because they would never do anything wrong. Look at what the Chairman of the Integrity Commission did! He has a secret meeting with the Leader of the Opposition in his home over an issue which his commission is supposed to be investigating!!?!! And nobody sees anything wrong with that?!?!

Let me tell you what's wrong with that: suppose you and I are in a dispute which is going before a particular judge in the High Court of Justice. How would you feel if I went to the judge's home one evening before our trial?!? You would feel good!? No! You wouldn't! But isn't our judiciary composed of honourable men and women? Yes! And don't you trust them? Yes!  But such a meeting would be  patently wrong on the face of it and I surely don't have to waste any more words in making that point. Ken Gordon was wrong to meet Keith Rowley in his home. He can write all the aide memoirs that he wants ... but nobody except the erstwhile chairman and Dr. Rowley ... the two participants ... was there to confirm or deny that what he wrote was in fact true. And there should be absolutely no cloud of suspicion hanging over the Integrity Commission. What the heck does the word "integrity" mean, for crying out loud?!

And then look at what I wrote about the charity United Way spending money on a cocktail party. I might as well have been whistling in the wind! None of the daily newspapers see this as wrong! Nobody has written about it! Why? Is it because those involved are all "big" businessmen and therefore advertisers who can pull their ads if they are criticised in public, or is it that I am wrong in thinking that was a big thing and is as wrong as wrong can be?

And what has got me so riled up now? On Saturday we had a birthday party for our 11 year old son. My wife got the bright idea of hooking up a little karaoke machine that we have to our other son's lap top and downloading some karaoke music from the internet for the kids to enjoy at the party. We needed a special cable to connect the karaoke machine to the lap top.

But when we shopped around we found that the cable was going to cost $528 so we said "nah!" That was way too much. But the son of a friend of ours went on to the internet and found the same cable on Amazon ... too late for the party, but he found it! Guess how much it costs on Amazon? Four American dollars!! Or, if you like, a little more than TT$25!!! Talk about rip-off!! Profit is one thing, but this kind of rip-off is as dishonest as it is wrong. It makes me wonder what else we are being overcharged for in this little republic of ours! And don't bother to answer that! The question was really rhetorical!

I am  as fed-up as I am upset! I am upset because the same people who complain vehmently about the corrupt politicians are the same ones who are ripping off the society in other ways. The hypocrisy is too much to bear! And we all seem to think that this is acceptable, for none of us does anything about it! We criticise the politicians, but not the businessmen or those who spend large wads of money given for charitable purposes on expensive parties!  But then, in Trini Wonderland, by definition, you obviously can't be corrupt if you are not a politician!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

On the social page of today's Trinidad Guardian ('The Talk of Trinidad') there is a two page spread of photographs of a cocktail party hosted by the children's charity United Way at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain. (Now, for those who might not be aware, the Hyatt is the most prestigious and most expensive hotel in Port of Spain.) The blurb accompanying the photographs says that the function was held by the charitable organisation to say 'thank you' to its sponsors for all the support that the sponsors have given to United Way.

And this was where I said a big loud "WHAT?" What in the name of heaven is a charitable organisation doing spending money that it has raised for charitable purposes in order to host a cocktail party to say thank you to the persons, firms and corporations that gave them money in order to do charitable works? And then the charitable organisation has the guts to boast about it by inviting the Guardian to send it's social reporter and photographer to record the event?!?

There is something grossly vulgar and obscene about this. It probably doesn't fall under the standard definition of "corruption" but to me this is as wrong as wrong can be! A charity doesn't raise money to help sick children and then go and blow a whole wad of it on a cocktail party to "thank" the people who gave them the money to help the sick kids in the first place!! A cocktail party like this will cost a cool $50,000 or more!!  If the charity can do this, then the next thing is that the chairman of United Way will say that he needs a Rolls Royce or Mercedes Benz to reflect his status and the importance of his organisation. And don't laugh! Some so-called charities in the United States have done just that! I mean, to heck with helping sick kids (which is the raison d'etre for the organisation in the first place). Let's have a party complete with Johnny Walker Black to thank all these nice folks who gave us all this money so that we could have a party! And not just a party, but a party at the Hyatt!!!!

No! This was wrong! Perhaps it is an explanation of why T&T has the stink of corruption surrounding it no matter what political party or parties we put in power. For if  a charity can do this where its directors are so-called honourable people, and we accept that there is nothing wrong with this, then why should we complain when the politicians simply take it one step further?

REVAMPING THE INTEGRITY COMMISSION

I don't think that there are many people who will disagree with the statement that the Integrity Commission ('IC') over the years has really not lived up to the promise of what it was set up to do, i.e., prevent corruption. And before people like Basdeo Panday stand up and say "if you have evidence of corruption take it to the police" let me state quite clearly that I have no evidence of anybody, either in past or present regimes, being corrupt. But there have been too many occasions when I have felt that the whole thing smells to high heaven. And I can (like too many others) refer to a whole lot of matters that are extremely fishy, too say the least!

But despite having an Integrity Commission that was supposed to make it harder for persons in public life to take bribes, the truth is that from it's inception that august Commission has been singularly ineffective and ineffectual. This is partly, I suppose, because of a certain incompetence, but I suspect that even with the  most competent of Commissioners in place that the IC would still be ineffective.

The reason that I say this is because the IC is supposed to scrutinise almost every single person in public life ranging from Prime Ministers at the high end to "lowly" councillors at the other end. In between there are people who will never be approached to take a bribe, e.g., opposition senators. (Who would want to bribe an opposition senator, for crying out loud?! He has absolutely no power or influence over the administration of the public purse.) In other words, the IC spends an inordinate amount of time pouring over all of the forms that persons in public life must submit on an annual basis. (Once when I was an opposition senator I got quite cross with the IC who asked me a bunch of what I considered to be extremely stupid questions and which, on principle, I refused to answer. The whole thing was eventually settled when I met with the then IC Chairman John Martin who apologised and we came to a compromise that allowed the IC to save some face. But this little episode took six months and many letters passing back and forth. A total waste of everyone's time!)

And this is my point. I have a friend who is a councillor. He does not belong to the Party that controls his council. The IC called him in earlier this year to question him as to why his wife owned his company (the financial information of which he had provided although not legally obliged to do so)! My friend eventually walked out and contacted me for advice. There was nothing wrong with his return, the person in the IC just couldn't understand why he was not a shareholder in his own company ... which incidentally does no business at all with any government or state enterprise! Stupidity par excellence!!

In other words, there is quite clearly a good deal of incompetence in the IC. But there is also an inadvertant swamping of the IC with a whole lot of unnecessary work in pouring over the returns of persons who clearly aren't in the "please bribe me business".

So, why don't we revamp the IC? And in doing so, why don't we take a commonsense approach? After all, who is more guilty: the person taking the bribe (the "bribee") or the person giving the bribe (the "bribor")? Answer: BOTH are equally guilty! So, why don't we fix the legislation? We could keep the 'net' of persons that have to file declarations except that we wouldn't make them file declarations unless the IC for any reason asks them to. That would cut out a lot of unnecessary work. Then, we should make all persons, firms or corporations (from banks to contractors and everybody inbetween) that do business with the government or any state enterprise subject to the jurisdiction of the IC. In other words, if a situation arose such as, for example,  the present one where some $6.4 million was spent to retrieve a $2 million firetruck (an act that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and stinks to high heaven) then the IC could (and should) of it's own volition go into the books, records and bank accounts of the contractor. If, for example, those records showed a suspiciously large payment, say,  to Tief Man, Grabbit & Run Cayman Islands Limited, then the IC could follow that up to see who the Tief Man company belonged to.  It wouldn't be too difficult after that to nab the corrupt politician. Follow the money and you eventually catch the thief!

What do you think? Makes sense, doesn't it? But then, it only makes sense if the politicians really want to make it more difficult to steal. The question really is: do we want to make it more difficult for the crooks, or do we like it so?

SERVICE ... is just another word!!

For some time now I have been quietly objecting to the so very obvious deterioration in standards in Trinidad & Tobago, not the least being the absolute absence of even a modicum of understanding of what the word "service" means, especially in fast food restaurants and those restaurants that advertise themselves as "family" restaurants. I am not just referring to the total and complete lack of understanding of the concept of service in places like MacDonalds and Burger King ... in those places "service" is clearly something that obtains on Mars or Jupiter, not a concept that applies on planet earth! I am also talking about places like TGI Fridays, Trotters and Ruby Tuesdays. In those type of establishments (and especially in those establishments) service is so lousy and so inexplicably inefficient that you would be easily forgiven from coming to the conclusion that the owners and management care only about making a buck and couldn't care less about giving their customers any kind of value in return. It is one thing to serve lousy food (which they all do). And most certainly, it is also more or less the same thing to charge exorbitantly high prices for the lousy food. But it is really, really insulting to serve the lousy food at exorbitant prices and not just couple it with absolutely terrible service, but to charge the customer an additional fifteen per cent for the privilege of getting lousy service. Put another way, "service" is just another word that has absolutely no meaning in this little country of ours ... at least as far as they are concerned.

I will confess that from time to time I go to one or the other of these really bad restaurants. Usually it is because I am either taken there by a client or my two sons beg me and I can't say no to them... although they are beginning to realise that what I have been saying is true. Thankfully, we haven't been near any of those places since the beginning of this year.

But yesterday (Sunday) being the end of the long week-end, when my ten year old son asked me to take him to Hagendaaz in Ellerslie Plaza for an ice cream I readily agreed. After all, I reasoned, what could possibly go wrong in ordering a few scoops of ice cream? Huh!?!? Guess again! My wife, my son and I entered the little ice cream shop and sat down. After about five minutes a waiter came to us and took our order. Because we had to be somewhere else at 6pm I glanced at my watch to check the time. It was exactly 5:20pm! My son ordered two scoops of ice cream and my wife asked for a piece of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on it. That was it! Now guess how long it took?

Twenty minutes later I got up and went and quietly complained to the manager that our order had not arrived. He very politely informed me that our order was coming "now"! Now, I don't know about you, but my understanding of "now" is "now", i.e. immediately! Not in five or even ten minutes time! Five minutes passed with no ice cream or apple pie. I got up again and quietly enquired as to why our order had not arrived. To my great surprise, the manager told me that as it was Sunday afternoon they were very busy and that three or four parties had come in ahead of us so we just had to wait our turn. But, not to worry, our order was coming "now" (that word again)! Incidentally, at that time, not all of the tables were occupied!

I had to ask myself 'how long does it take to get and serve a scoop of ice cream'? And the answer has to be less than a minute. You try it sometime. So even if there were, say, four parties ahead of us with, say, an average of three to a party (and most of the tables at that time were occupied by parties of two ... we were the only three person party at that time), then with four parties ahead of us there is absolutely no good reason why we could not have been served in ten minutes (or less). If we were in the States or Canada, for example, I know that the service there would have ensured that we would have been served in less than ten minutes!

I can hear you say 'but this is Trinidad. What do you expect?' And my answer is that I expect right minded citizens to refuse to accept such a lousy excuse and to criticise severely all those who would accept lousy service with a shrug. We didn't make a fuss. We just walked out of Hagendaaz. I saw the manager and a waitress looking at me with some surprise as if to say that I was being unreasonable, especially as they had told me that my order was coming 'now'. But up to the time that we exited the place our order was not on it's way to our table.

To wait twenty-five minutes for a few scoops of ice cream and a piece of apple pie is totally and completely unacceptable and the owners of that ice cream shop ought to be ashamed of the very poor service ... worse still because it purports to be a high class joint! But then, so do all the others!

It is time that we start to complain and refuse to spend our money in those places that encourage their staff to be rude, surly and inefficient. I know that this can be done. For example, there is a great little pizza restaurant in Victoria Avenue called La Cantina. The pizzas are the best in town and the service is superb ... first world in every aspect! And all the waiters and waitresses are Trinis to the bone. What do they know that the others don't? My guess is that the owners and management really care ... the others don't care a fig! But then, why should they? We continue to support them without complaint! And therein lies our tragedy!!

P.S. In addition to a service charge being tacked on to your bill at these places, you are expected to leave a tip. The whole concept of tipping has conveniently been forgotten. The word "tip" come from the acronym "To Insure Promptness". Ironic, isn't it!?

THE EAST WIND

                    "Should a wise man answer with empty knowledge,
                      and fill himself with the east wind?
                      Should he run with unprofitable talk, or by speeches
                      with which he can do no good?"
                                                                     Book of Job - 15:2&3



I had sincerely hoped that we would be able to put this e mail scandal down by now (I refuse to be a copycat and call it "emailgate"? Can't we be more original than that?) and that the police investigation would be well on its way. Frankly, I don't see how this could take a long time. Experts are available and all of the major players have said that they will co-operate, so there is absolutely no reason why a matter as important as this one is cannot be dealt with swiftly ... and by 'swiftly' I mean first world 'swiftly' ... a week or two at the most. If the investigation is not done quickly then the acting Commissioner of Police will have to say what is the hold up and why it is taking so long. Experts do exist!!

But in the meantime, the whole thing gets murkier. I had said in an earlier post that I didn't believe that Dr. Rowley had sent the alleged e mails to teh President. I had said this because I couldn't believe that the then President had done nothing except forward it to the Integrity Commission, who also did nothing! And yet, at the end of last week former President Richards said 'oh yes! I got that package from Dr. Rowley and held onto it for about five or six days and then sent it on to the Integrity Commission before wiping my hands of the whole thing'.

Okay. The former President didn't exactly say that ... but that is the effect of what he said. So I now have to ask the ex-President why did he not call in the police? You see, included in the contents of the alleged e mails is a conspiracy to kill or seriously injure a citizen of Trinidad & Tobago. What, in the name of heaven, did the former President think taht the Integrity Commission was going to do about that? I can't believe that he was waiting to see if it would actually happen and then join in by saying 'gotcha!' What?

The only valid excuse that I can think of is that His Excellency having perused the documents came to the conclusion that they were so patently false that it was absolutely clear that there was absolutely no threat to the journalist whatsoever. There is no other valid excuse. The same thing goes for the Integrity Commission. I can't believe ...refuse to believe ... that the life of a human being could be so cavalierly treated by someone in that august Commission as being quoted as saying words to the effect that the Commission has a lot of work to do and that is why it hasn't got around to this matter as yet! Really? You have more important work to do than saving someone's life!?

I am not even going to bother commenting on Dr.Rowley's actions. Clearly, at best, if he really believed those alleged e mails to be true, he was playing politics with somebody's life! And that, in my view, is unforgivable. He should have gone to the police right away!

A TANGLED WEB

A famous quotation from Sir Walter Scott (1771 -1832) reads:

               "O what a tangled web we weave,
                When first we practise to deceive!"

This quote came to my mind this morning as the continuing saga of Dr. Rowley's e mails unfolds. Let me say here and now and quite candidly that I now believe beyond reasonable doubt that the e mails are fakes. Whether Dr. Rowley knew that the e mails were forgeries is another question. Most certainly, from what we are now hearing and seeing on our television screens, that at the very least he is guilty of gross recklessness in doing what he did in the way that he did it. A more thoughtful person would have checked those alleged e mails much more carefully before publicising them in the manner that the erstwhile Leader of the Opposition adopted.

Since Monday's revelations in Parliament a number of PNM spokesmen have come out batting for Dr. Rowley. Leading the attack for his leader is the PNM's Public Relations Officer, Mr. Faris Al-Rawi, who also happens to be a PNM Senator. On television yesterday morning Mr. Al-Rawi waxed warm in defending and supporting his leader. When asked the obvious question as to why the PNM did nothing about these e mails which they had supposedly had since December, Mr. Al-Rawi said words to the effect that they sent them to the highest office holder in the land ... the President.  And then he went on to say that President Richards had sent them to the Integrity Commission! Why send them to the Police? They were sent to the very top!! You can't get higher than the President!

Well, all I can say is hold it sherriff! She's headin' for the strawberry patch! Really? You sent those e mails to the President? And by "you" I mean the PNM. So that means that not only Dr. Rowley knew about those e mails but others in the PNM knew about them too? And therefore President Richards knew about them in December? And the Integrity Commission knew about it also in December?!

You see, in those e mails are (amongst other things) some very, very serious threats on the life of a journalist ... a citizen of this country. So, leaving aside any "politricks" that the e mails are alleging you are also talking about major criminality here. Therefore, if Dr. Rowley and Mr. Al-Rawi are indeed telling the truth this must mean that our former President George Maxwell Richards knew that there was a threat to the life of a citizen and he did nothing about it! Further, the Integrity Commission also knew and it also did nothing about it! Further, others in the PNM also knew or believed that it was possible that a young woman might be killed! And nobody did anything to prevent that from happening!!

You see what I mean? This scandal is too serious to just let it go like that. Mr. Ken Gordon, the Chairman of the Integrity Commission,  is quoted in the press this morning as saying that if the e mails are true then that would be very serious. But I must ask Mr. Gordon directly, what if the e mails are forgeries? Fakes? Wouldn't that also be very serious? Have you also considered that possibility?  And also, did the President send them to you in December or at any other time before he left office? If so. what did you (Mr. Gordon/Integrity Commission) do about them? Did you alert the police? If so, when? Because Mr. Gordon's public pronouncement today suggests that he, like the rest of us, only heard about this when Dr. Rowley went to Parliament.

And if the Integrity Commission and the President knew about this way back in December, or whenever, and did nothing about it, the question arises as to why they did nothing? Did they believe that the threats were not real? That the e mails were fakes? Or were they waiting for an "Ah! Ha!' moment when the journalist got killed so that they could say to the Prime Minister and the Attorney General "gotcha!" In other words, were they too playing politics with the life of a citizen? Because the only reason that I can think as to why the Opposition was keeping quiet for so long was because they wanted the murder to take place and then they coud say "gotcha!". Can anybody give me another credible reason? This, of course, assumes that the e mails were real. If at all times those in the know knew that they were forgeries then obviously nobody was really worried. The threat was faked! So nobody had to alert the police.

Let me say that I do believe that neither Mr. Richards nor any member of the Integrity Commission (including Mr. Gordon)  ever saw these alleged e mails before Dr. Rowley dropped them in Parliament.  But if they did, as the PNM is alleging, then a lot more people other than Dr. Rowley have some real questions to answer. We'll have to wait and see, but Sir Walter Scott's words of warning remain as true today as they were some two hundred years ago when he first wrote them.

ROWLEY'S HAIL MARY PASS

In American football there is a play that is referred to as a "Hail Mary pass". What happens is this: a touchdown is worth six points. It sometimes happens that one team is behind by, say, four points, and there is only enough time on the clock for the team that is behind to make one more play. If the team scores a touchdown on that play it wins the game. If it does not score ... well, that's it! They lose! Usually the quarterback of the team that is behind at  this time throws the football to a receiver that is way downfield. If the receiver catches the ball a touchdown is certain. That is why it's called a 'Hail Mary' as when the ball is going through the air for those few interminable seconds you can almost hear the supporters of that team as well as the quarterback saying "Hail Mary, full of grace ...".

Dr. Keith Rowley's play in Parliament yesterday could be labelled such a pass because if what he said turns out to be not true he will have effectively sunk himself and his PNM team. That would be it! Finito! Kaput! On the other hand, if all that he has said is true the Government is sunk!

Dr. Rowley showed clearly yesterday that he understood clearly that he simply had to come with something new for the no confidence motion that he was bringing. A simple re-hashing of past issues was not going to cut it. So he came up with some e mails that, if true, are so serious that they would bring the Government down, as I said earlier. The e mails basically allege a criminal conspiracy between the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister's special security adviser, Captain Gary Griffith over the section 34 issue. Further the e mails go further to suggest that the parties involved were planning serious harm to a journalist.

The problem here is that the e mails appear on their very face to be faked. For example, a lot of the e mails are supposed to have come from an e mail address: anan@ gmail.com. But it is not possible to create a g mail account with less than six characters. So, that e mail address would have to be, say, anan12@gmail.com in order to be valid. (And as if to prove this my computer has highlighted and underlined the fake address that I just made up the way that it does whenever I type a real e mail or web address. It didn't do that for the "anan" address.) So, what are we to make of this? Then there is another e mail address that ends in ".coN "(I have high lighted and capitalised the "n" for emphasis). There should be an "m" where the "n"is. Then there is an alleged exchange of e mails between Captain Griffith and Mr. Ramlogan starting with Mr. Ramlogan allegedly e mailing Captain Griffith at 1:33am on a Monday morning and Captain Griffith replying at 1:40am! So? So these men don't sleep and are sitting on their computers at that time?! Really? I'm sorry. That doesn't make sense.

There are other things that lead me to believe that the e mails are faked, but hopefully you get the point. Then Dr. Rowley wants us to believe that he had this information for the last six months!? Really? So he is saying that he knew that there was a threat on the life of the journalist but did nothing about it?! What was he waiting for? For the woman to be killed and then he could say 'ah!Ha! Caught you!' In other words, scoring political points is more important than saving someone's life!?

(There are other things too. Did anyone notice, for example, that the Express published all the e mails with the adresses, except the ".con" address was deleted in their publication? I wonder why they did that? Hmmmm! Makes you think, doesn't it?)

But back to the erstwhile Leader of the Opposition. The accusations that he has made are very, very serious. The Prime Minister has quite properly referred them to the Commissioner of Police. If they turn out to be true the Prime Minister and her Attorney General will have to resign. There is no question of that! But if the accusations turn out to be false then Dr. Rowley should be expelled from the Parliament. This is much too serious to warrant a slight slap on the wrist or a mere suspension. No one should be allowed to make accusations like this in the Parliament ... the highest court in our land ... if they are not true. No one!

Competent Leadership or Rabble Rousing?

While it has been some 8 years since I was last privileged to be a member of the Parliament of Trinidad & Tobago and as a result my memory of the Standing Orders is now somewhat hazy, I seemed to remember something in them saying in effect that a member cannot "re-discuss" something that was raised in another debate. In other words, a member cannot regurgitate something that was already discussed in another debate.

Well, my memory is admittedly hazy, so I checked the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives and found that I was partially right. Standing Order 36(3) says in effect (my words) that a member cannot raise a matter which has already been dealt with in a current session. A session of Parliament is historically a period lasting usually less than one year when Parliament meets. At the end of the session Parliament is prorogued, but no general election is called, and the legislators have a chance to return to their constituencies until the next session is called.

But all this aside, the reason that my curiosity was piqued was because the Leader of the Opposition has filed yet another motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister (no confidence motions against the Government of the day are always filed against the Prime Minister of the day) and I wondered what was new from the last time he filed such a motion. Then I heard the public relations officer of the PNM, Senator Faris Al-Rawi, giving a list on television of all of the things that the PNM was going to raise in the instant motion. Of all the things that he raised on TV the only thing that was new (i.e., that was not included in the last debate)  was what can be called "the section 34 issue". Now I have already previously dealt with this particular matter when it was a "hot" topic and I don't propose to deal with it again. But, if the Opposition wants to have a debate on section 34 then it is perfectly entitled to do so.

However, I find it difficult to understand the logic in regurgitating matters that even if they were debated in the last session of Parliament and therefore technically falling outside the rules, so that we get the same thing all over again just in slightly different words. Is the Opposition really serious in suggesting that this is an efficient use of Parliamentary time? After all, isn't what was said in the last debate simply going to be repeated all over again? If so, what exactly is the point about this debate? Everything is already on the Parliamentary record. The Opposition on the last occasion put all of their members in to speak. Only Mr. Manning was silent. Is the same thing going to happen again?

Let me be clear: if the erstwhile Senator Al-Rawi mis-spoke on television or I misunderstood him and there are indeed new matters to place on record then I withdraw my criticisms completely. I would be the first to say that the Opposition has every right ... indeed, a responsibility ... to bring a motion of no confidence. But if nothing new is going to come out of the debate then I would have to say that the debate is going to be a tremendous waste of Parliamentary time and is not a proper use of Parliamentary resources.It also speaks volumes about the lack of real and competent leadership in what ought to be the alternative government of Trinidad & Tobago. And that is serious! There are many serious issues to be dealt with in this country and we simply don't need an Opposition that believes that the best way to represent the people is by trying to score political points ... and that is what the real purpose of this debate, quite frankly, looks like!

And if you say to me 'what about section 34'? My reply would be 'okay, that's new. Go ahead and debate it if you want'. But then it will be a very short debate for the answers to those charges have been on record for a long time and (conveniently) ignored by those opposed to the Government. 

I must confess that I really don't expect much from the upcoming debate except for a lot of predictable rabble rousing. Would that I be proved wrong and we could see some competent alternative leadership! The best government always comes when there is a credible alternative!

Incidentally, if you ask me what do I think are the big issues that the Opposition ought to be paying attention to, let me spell them out for you:
                          J-O-B-S
                          C-R-I-M-E
                          H-E-A-L-T-H
                          E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N
I would love to hear exactly what the PNM would do to solve these big issues. I don't need to hear any more criticisms. I need to hear solutions.

SUMMARY JUSTICE vs. SOME JUSTICE

As the Sir Anthony Coleman Commission of Enquiry (COE) into the affairs of CLICO and the Hindu Credit Union winds its weary way down after spending millions and millions of taxpayers dollars we are all left with the obvious question: so, what happens next? Because I doubt whether there is anybody who is going to be surprised that the Coleman report will be absolutely scathing in its criticisms of Lawrence Duprey, Harry Harnarine and the other members of the repective cast members in both organisations. Indeed, it would be mind boggling if the report was not severely critical of all of the actors on those two particular stages.

But the truth is that most people don't believe that anything will come of Sir Anthony's report. It is absolutely astounding that after all the time that has elapsed since the collapse of both institutions that not one criminal charge has been levied against anybody in either CLICO or the Hindu Credit Union. The Director of Public Prosecutions can hardly claim that he was waiting on Sir Anthony's report. He is on record as trying to limit the Enquiry because of his own investigations. So? What exactly is taking him so long to bring charges? What? And the mainstream media has been muted in its criticisms of the apparent footdragging by the DPP. Why? How many years does the DPP need to investigate these two matters? Two? Three? Five? Twenty? Because he has now had at least four years and not a single charge has been levied against anybody!! Incredible!!

That we aspire to live under a system of laws is a fact. That we deplore summary or what some call "Wild West" justice is also a good thing. It is axiomatic that persons accused of anything must be given every opportunity to defend themselves. No one can quarrel with that even when, for example, wealthy accused are able to drag out the cases over long periods of time (Ish and Steve come to mind). A man has an absolute right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But for crying out loud, there has to be some justice available to the society. What has happened to the CLICO policy holders/investors and the HCU depositers is really, really, really wrong. I personally believe that crimes have been committed. Irregular salary and pension packages, golden handshakes and bonuses in the millions when the institutions were clearly bankrupt, over generous fees for attending meetings to rubber stamp decisions and dodgy auditors' reports all need to be dealt with and should have been scrutinised years ago. But they haven't been, at least not by those (e.g., the DPP) who could really do something about it.

There are reportedly some five million pages of evidence from the Coleman COE. Surely the DPP should have and could have been reading that evidence as it was unfolding!? What exactly is he (the DPP) investigating now? And who is he investigating? I am sure that most of us could give him a list!

It is high time that charges were brought ... and serious charges. Persons who were robbed in both debacles have died after being effectively bankrupted by the failures of these two institutions. No. Some justice is necessary now. And the tragedy is that although criticisms can always be levied against politicians in both the main political parties the truth is that it seems to be the fault of our non-political institutions that the debacles were allowed to happen in the first place and that nobody has been called to account in the second. And to be absolutely clear, I am criticising here the Central Bank, the Commissioner of Co-Operatives and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

DON'T CRY FOR ME VENEZUELA!

In the midst of all of the political happenings in T&T we have not been paying any real attention to what is going on just a few kilometers/miles to the west of us. Our comparitively huge neighbour is in real trouble and only the most sycophantic Chavistas will not admit it. Real standards of living are in free fall and one of the world's potentially richest countries is in for the devil of a time. The immediate future facing Venezuelans is one of blood, sweat and tears.

Let me explain: when the 7th October 2012 presidential elections the total number of electors on the electoral list was 18, 854,935.  On 14th April, 2013 the total number of electors registered to vote was 18,904,364. So? What's the big deal? There is an increase in the list of registered voters by 49,429 new electors. I agree that there should be nothing wrong with this except that the authorities refused to allow any new registrations beyween the two elections. I know this because I know several people in Caracas whose children turned 18 after 7th October, 2012 and who were prevented from registering to vote! Nobody, they were told could register to vote for the new Presidential election. It was to be fought on the old electoral list!

Then, on the night of the 14th April presidential elections, the television stations started broadcasting that Maduro was the winner with 50.66 per cent of the popular vote as against 49.07 per cent for his opponent Enrique Capriles. The only problem with this broadcast was that they posted on television the actual amount of votes that each candidate had received: 7,505,388 votes for Maduro as against 7,720,403 votes for Capriles!! Got that? According to the TV stations Maduro had won with 215,065 votes less than Capriles had received. (And by the way, I personally saw the several broadcasts on this before they took the figures down, so I am reporting absolute facts!!) They later reported that Maduro got 7.27 million votes ... but it took a looonnngggg time to fix! What happened? I have seen no explanations for this.

There are unconfirmed reports of ballots being destroyed and about the army burning ballot papers. I have seen videos of this but cannot say definitively that they are accurate or entirely truthful. However, in light of the fact that Maduro refused a recount and has had himself sworn in and then has allowed a recount which is going to take more than a month I must confess that my suspicions have been aroused as to both the validity of the published results as well as what the result of the recount will be. In fact, I'll take a bet (one dollar to one doughnut ... and we'll decide later who pays the dollar and who pays the doughnut) that the recount results will "show" that Maduro has won.

Incidentally, the opposition in Venezuela says that Capriles actually got 53.5 per cent of the popular vote as against Maduro getting 44.3 per cent. Interesting, eh?

In the meantime, Venezuela, a country full of oil, gold, timber and other minerals is in serious financial trouble. The official exchange rate of the bolivar to the US dollar is about 6bs to US$1. The blackmarket rate is now about 24bs to US$1!!! There are shortages of the most basic commodities: milk, butter, flour, bread, and even women's sanitary napkins! Inflation is approaching 30% for this year which is not even half over. There already has been a 33% devaluation of the currency in February and another one is expected soon. Maduro's answer is that (a) it's not really happening and (b) if it is all the troubles are (you guessed it!) the fault of and caused by the United States! But Venezuela continues to supply Cuba with oil to the value of about US$2 billion per month and not get paid for it! Not bad for a country going broke! But then it's the Yankees fault!

There is talk of newer laws to come which will further encroach on the freedoms of the country's citizenry, which, if true, will simply add more layers onto a population already groaning under a tyrant's yoke. The latest move to say to elected representatives that they cannot speak in the country's Parliament unless they recognise Maduro as the duly elected President is yet another example of the real and galloping dictatorship. Well, Mr. Maduro, for what it's worth, I recognise you as being the duly elected President of Venezuela ... duly elected by a fraudulent process and a fraudulent result, but "duly elected" nonetheless!! Just be careful, Mr. Maduro, because I predict that sooner or later the  same guns that you have turned against your people will turn against you. Violence always breeds violence!
 What a tragedy!!

A MODERN DAY ROBIN HOOD?

About seven or eight hundred years ago there was a character called Robin of Locksley who some how has morphed into a legend known as Robin Hood. According to the legend, Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. He is supposed to have stood up to the injustices that existed under the rule of the Norman or Norman leaning Prince John, whose brother King Richard had been captured somewhere in France on his way back from the crusades and was being held for a ransom which his brother (Prince John) was reluctant to pay. As a result, the English peasantry as well as the English nobility was groaning under the tyranny of Prince John and his Norman cohorts.

Whether the legend is true or not it has certainly captured the imagination of the public down through the centuries. Just about everybody knows the story of Robin Hood and he is garlanded with accolades and regarded as a genuine hero who stood up against tyranny and fought for the little man.

But what if we could somehow go back in a time machine to the time of Robin Hood and sort out and separate for ourselves fact from fiction? I am almost certain that we would find that Robin Hood was not quite the character that history and legend has made him out to be. It is highly likely that we would find that the "establishment" of the period would regard Mr. Hood as an out and out criminal who deserved to be hanged at dawn ... if they could only catch him. And if there were newspapers around then (and there weren't) the press would almost universally be condemning Robin. You could almost imagine a typical headline: 'HOOD STRIKES AGAIN! BOLD CRIMINAL AND GANG ROBS SHERRIFF OF NOTTINGHAM'S NIECE IN DARING HOLD-UP. NOBLES RENEW CALL FOR LAW AND ORDER AND OFFER A REWARD FOR CAPTURE OF CRIMINAL AND HIS GANG".

I am also certain that Mr. Hood would not have given away everything that he stole but would have kept a (very) large proportion of the proceeds of his activities for his own personal benefit. The altruism that the legend attributes to him is normally found only amongst the saints and holy people who from time to time have walked amongst us.

In other words, assuming (but certainly not accepting) that every thing that his critics and detractors say about Jack Warner is true, then except for the names and a few other changes his story and that of Robin Hood is a very similar one. And one can understand why he (Mr. Warner) is so popular ... for the same reasons that Robin Hood was popular almost a millenia ago.

But there are some critical differences. And the biggest difference is that in our modern society it is becoming more and more difficult to get away with criminal activity if (and only if) the State wants to get you. Mr. Warner made a brilliant political move last week when he resigned his seat and announced that he would seek re-election. He put everybody on their backfeet. The Prime Minister was faced with a very real problem: if she allowed him to run as a UNC candidate and he won (which he would) then she would have a potential rival for leadership of the Party ... something that no leader can tolerate. If she sought to block him by preventing him from getting through the screening process and he ran and won as an independent then her leadership would probably be fatally wounded. Talk about 'ouch'!

The PNM also would be badly hurt. Mr. Warner could taunt them with their "voice of the people is the voice of God" mantra whenever they hurled any insults or accusations against him. Mr. Warner would easily have become the most powerful politician in Trinidad & Tobago.

But late last week, somebody in the police force threw something into the mix that could de-rail the ex-National Security Minister severely. Somebody in the police caused a file to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to the possible breach of the Customs Act in what might loosely be called the Bim Hammam affair with the paper bags of US$40,000 in cash. Now, if the DPP decides to charge Mr. Warner with this matter it could effectively de-rail Mr. Warner's hopes of running for re-election as the UNC's candidate for Chaguanas West as the UNC's rules prevent it from endorsing any person as a candidate who is on an indictable charge before the courts of this land. Kamla gets off the hook as she would be prevented from allowing Warner's candidacy to go forward.

Mr. Warner would then be deprived of accusing the Prime Minister (or anybody else) from conspiring to de-rail him and keep him out. In those circumstances the UNC faithful would find it difficult to support him. In other words, he could actually lose the by-election. That would cause a big headache to go away for both the UNC as well as the PNM.

Ahhh! Life in the tropics! Never a dull moment! We shall have to wait and see what happens next, but you can be certain that this story has more twists and turns than a novella. The only thing that we can be certain about is that it ain't over yet! Not by a long shot!

RE-WRITING HISTORY or SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE

So Jack Warner has gone. Frankly, I don't really see that he had a choice. While I agree that the newspaper articles were serious, I also agreed with the Prime Minister's 'wait and see' attitude. You don't fire somebody because of newspaper allegations ... especially when the allegations are coming from a biased source. But the ball game changes when the allegations come from an investigating committee such as that headed by Sir David Simmons for FIFA and CONCACAF.

Mr. Warner will have to deal with these allegations now. It is not good enough to say that he will deal with them at some future date. It is absolutely necessary that he clears his name as soon as possible. If he doesn't then he will find himself politically as dead as the dodo bird, and probably in some serious legal trouble, if he is not already.

Of course, he could take a leaf out of Dr. Keith Rowley's notebook on how to deal with seemingly damning and irrefutable allegations. You will recall that Dr. Rowley, while a Minister in the Manning Regime, was associated with a land development project in Tobago known as Landate. The project was in his wife's name but everybody believed that he was the driving force behind it. In any case, the project was going on at the same time that the Scarborough General Hospital was being constructed by a very, very large local construction company called NH International which is owned by Dr. Rowley's good friend, Emile Elias. And here is where the story gets murky.

The company doing the Landate project was a very, very small Tobago based company owned by a chap called Warner (not Jack). This company subcontracted the major portion (something like 99 percent) of the Landate project to NH International. Then NH International started to remove materials and equipment from the Scarborough General Hospital site without either the knowledge or theconsent of the engineer in charge of that project and carry them up to the Landate site.

A commission of enquiry recommended that NH International be investigated by the police with a view to determining whether or not there had been any breaches of the Larceny Act. (In other words and in local parlance, to see if anybody t'ief!) But the police mysteriously could not find the relevant files and the matter has never been investigated. Further, then Prime Minister Patrick Manning never looked into the mysterious disappearance of those files either. (Incidentally, all the police had to do was read the report of the commission of enquiry andlook at the transcripts of the evidence ... and, for the record, I know that they were told where to look because I personally told them! I was involved in the commission of enquiry.)

In any case, the next thing that happened was the the Integrity Commission referred Dr. Rowley to the Director of Public Prosecutions for his involvement in that whole rather sordid affair. Dr. Rowley went to the High Court seeking a stay of the referral on the ground that the Inegrity Commission should have called him in and asked for his side of the story before referring the matter to the DPP. A High Court Judge agreed with Dr. Rowley, the members of the Integrity Commission resigned and the whole matter has come to an abrupt halt. The question of whether or not there has been criminal conduct in this affair either by Dr. Rowley or by NH International or anybody else has never been determined!

I raise this now because what is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander. I heard Senator Al Rawi say on television yesterday that a Judge of the High Court had found Dr. Rowley completely innocent in the Landate affair. That is simply not true. The sad truth is that no investigation was ever done in that matter, either by the police nor by the "ever vigilant and fearless" press. 'Why not' is, of course, the big question. Perhaps the old Jack Warner could ask Keith Rowley how he (Rowley) managed to get that issue to die? Because nowhere have I seen a report that the Simmons Committee interviewed Mr. Warner before issuing their damning and damaging report. If that is so, then can Jack Warner also go to Court and cite Rowley's case as an authority for stopping everything in it's tracks?

ARE YOU STILL BEATING YOUR WIFE?

When I first qualified as a lawyer I was taught a great trick in cross examination: put a question to a witness in such a way that no matter how he answered he would effectively admit whatever it was that you were trying to get out of him. A classic example of this type of questioning is: 'are you still beating your wife?' If the witness answers "yes" then, of course, you have him. But if he answers "no" then there is a clear inference that he used to beat her, just that he doesn't do so any more. In other words you will catch him no matter what he answers!

Veteran Express reporter Camini Marajh sent a list containing some 40 questions to Mr. Jack Warner, the Minister of National Security, last week Wednesday. Both the tenor as well as the content of all of the questions lead the reader in absolutely no doubt that the reporter is in possession of certain information that is potentially extremely damaging to the erstwhile National Security Minister. But some of the questions are also "are you still beating your wife" questions. Take, for example, question no. 13:

            "Much has been said about your (Warner's) role in facilitating the May 2011 cash-for-vote                 
               affair. Two investigatory hearings, FIFA Ethics Committee and CAS, found "credible   
              evidence" that directly connects you to the cash. In fact, the undisputed evidence places the  
              cash in your government office on the afternoon of May 10.. Can you please tell me about 
              the circumstances leading to the presence of a suitcase full of cash in your old Minister of  
              Works office in London Street in Port of Spain? Comment also on the view that your 
              conduct in this matter was an abuse of the public's trust."

Now, just taking this one question as an example, what impression do you get from it? The impression that I get is : (a) That it is an absolute fact that a suitcase full of cash was found in Mr. Warner's office;
           (b) That this is not only an absolute fact but it is also undisputed, which means (inter alia) that
                 Mr. Warner admits this;
            (c) That there is a public perception that this was an abuse of the public's trust; and
            (d) That the reporter believes that Mr. Warner is a crook of the highest order, just that
                  she isn't saying this so bluntly.

I am not aware, for example, that Mr. Warner has ever admitted that a bundle of cash was found in his office! Indeed, a question immediately arises as to who found it and what did he do about it? And if he did nothing, then why not? Why didn't he do something? Is this "undisputed fact" really a fact? Next, why should Mr. Warner talk to the reporter if she clearly believes that he is a crook? Is there anything that he can do or say to change her mind which appears to be already made up? The same, or similar comments can be made about the other 39 questions. And I am not here going to deal with the Express pretending that Mr. Warner had not replied to Ms. Marajh. That in itself is yet another example of not being entirely honest or straight forward. At best, it's claim that Mr. Warner did not reply was a half truth ... and half truths are often more dangerous than lies.

Mr. Warner's rather elegant reply to the reporter was in essence: I don't trust you to report accurately or honestly on anything that I might say and as a result I ain't talkin' to you or your newspaper. You all are not honest in your reporting and in any case I don't have to tell you diddleysquat!

Well, in this Mr. Warner is absolutely correct. The Express has been less than honest or straight forward in its reporting on the activities (or non-activities) of various Government Ministers (the "big" news about the non ownership of a Rolls Royce motor car comes to mind) and honestly, if Mr. Warner were my client (and he is NOT) I would have advised him not to answer anything that the Express were to ask for precisely that reason, i.e., that their reporting and commentary is biased and that they will obviously use anything he says to them to hang him.

But, (and it is a big "BUT") the public interest is clearly not being served here at all. The accusations and rumors swirling around Mr. Warner's head are very serious and cannot and ought not to be ignored or pushed aside. We, the public, deserve to have answers to the many, many questions that are swirling around. We need to know whether or not there really is a fire or just some very good smoke making machines. And here is where a free and honest press comes in. It does not help when an accusation is made by someone who is clearly biased. (There are very few divorced men or women, for example,   whose ex wives or ex husbands  will say that they are great guys or girls, as the case may be. But, the truth is that some of them are! Some of them aren't!). The obvious bias that pervades the pages of both the newspapers, especially the Express, against the government makes any person within the government understandably gun shy of talking to reporters. They never know how their words are going to be twisted. The government is not guilty of trying to muzzle the press or to interfere with its freedom. In any case, the press is free to twist things any way it likes within the boundaries of libel, and to report or not report on anything that it likes. But when it acts in a patently biased manner and consistently twists its reporting in a manner that is essentially dishonest (e.g. the Rolls Royce story) then certainly the victims of the biased reporting are not only within their rights not to speak to the offending media, but would be well advised not to do so.

The obvious war that the media (and the Express in particular) has declared on the government ought to be brought to an early end. From my viewpoint, this war is not doing the country any good at all.

Please do not interpret what I have said here as in any way being a defence of either Jack Warner or the government. It is not meant to be. It is simply an effort to bring things back to the centre. Every government ... every political party ...  needs the press to get its message out. Every newspaper needs the politicians in order to get stories to put in its pages in order to sell its papers. The relationship doesn't have to be cordial. In fact, it probably works best when there is  a certain slight hostility or distrust. But there does have to be a certain honesty and respect from both sides. And therein lies the problem: the press clearly doesn't respect the government nor has it been honest in its reporting about the government. As a start, perhaps the press could "set the re-set button" and go back to honest reporting. Either that, or come out honestly and admit that it has in fact declared war on the present administration and intends to do all in its power to bring the government down. But we really can't continue like this. It can only lead to trouble ... and we have enough problems on our plate already!

ROGUE ELEMENTS IN THE MEDIA?

The uproar in the Press to the Prime Minister's allegation earlier this week that there are rogue elements in the media was entirely predictable. The media in Trinidad & Tobago are notorious for never apologising for anything they do whether right or wrong (and especially when they are wrong) and for guarding their turf jealously. This is a pity, because more often than is happy the media say and do things that are just plain wrong, and there is little or no redress other than a very expensive and time consuming law suit for defamation. They know this full well and tend to take advantage of it. For every law suit for defamation there must be at least twenty instances of the media being "naughty" and wrong.

Don't believe me? It happens all the time. Look, just the other day the Express newspaper published an article with a headline to the effect that the Attorney General was denying that a certain Rolls Royce motor car belonged to him. The article was even accompanied by a photograph of the car complete with a Trinidad licence plate! Most of the article (and the headline) was about the AG's denial that the car was his, but towards the end of the article it was reported that the car in fact was registered to a very well known company and quoted the managing director of that company as saying that the car was his and that he had owned several Rolls Royce motor cars previously. But you had to read the whole article to get to the truth. So, why the headline and the article? This surely wasn't news?!

The only reason that I can think of was that the Express wanted to embarrass the Attorney General. I can think of no other reason. What is news worthy about a Government Minister NOT owning an expensive motor car? The answer is: nothing! Nothing at all!! So, if they weren't trying to embarrass the AG why would they print such an article? Nothing else makes sense. If anyone can give me another plausible reason as to why the Express would print such an article I will immediately apologise.

This is the second time that the Express has attacked the Attorney General in this manner. The first time was over some apartments that he bought shortly after taking up office. Again, in that article (as in "the Rolls Royce article") the reader was left with the distinct impression that there was some sort of 'hanky panky' ... or to put it more bluntly, corruption ... taking place but that the paper just can't prove it. Certainly, that was my impression.

But this surely is wrong. A newspaper shouldn't be allowed to print an article like "the Rolls Royce article" without some more facts. If the newspaper suspects that the Attorney General is involved in some sort of corruption then it should say so ... and not slide around the issue in a manner that, frankly, reeks of dishonest and malicious reporting.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. The Guardian has also stepped into the act with some rather serious attacks on the erstwhile and very voluble Sports Minister, Mr. Anil Roberts. Basically what happened was that there seems to have been some rather serious allegations concerning the Boxing Board, the end result of which has caused the Integrity Commission to refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Guardian reported that amongst those being referred to the DPP was the Sports Minister. This turned out to be incorrect.

Now, any referral of any matter to the DPP is serious.And a report like this one is bound to make the ordinary citizen look twice at the Minister. But it wasn't true. What is true (at least from all that is in the public domain) is that there are some rather serious issues to be looked at that could possibly constitute corruption of some sort by certain people. But (at least for the moment) the Minister is definitely NOT one of them! The story is clearly not finished and, I dare say, a lot more will come out. But at the very least, surely the Guardian could have and should have published a front page apology to the Minister ... especially if there was no ulterior motive but just a desire to report the facts. So, why hasn't such an apology been made? It doesn't make sense ... unless, there is something else behind the article. But what?!? Does the Guardian have more facts that implicate the Minister? If so, then they should come out and say so.  Or is there another more sinister and (ultimately) dishonest motive? What? And if there was no malice, why didn't/doesn't the Guardian apologise? It doesn't make sense!

And I am not getting into the counter allegations of the Minister against the reporter, nor of her responses to him. I am about what is right and about doing the right thing and about what are the undisputed facts. I do not accept the media's brushing aside the fact that it wrongly reported that a matter involving Mr. Roberts was referred to the DPP and effectively refusing to apologise for their mistake. It is right that someone should aplogise when he has done something wrong, especially if the mistake was a genuine one. (Of course, it is harder to apologise where the mistake was deliberate and not accidental!) I think that Mr. Roberts was right when he said that the media should be held to as high a standard as possible. I do not accept that freedom of the press means licence to print or broadcast anything that you want. I do not believe that the Prime Minister's statement about rogue elements in the media can even be remotely construed as an attack on press freedom. I do believe that there are rogue elements in the media, and by that I mean elements that have their own agendas, some of them hidden, and which have nothing to do with reporting the facts but everything to do with the furtherance of their particular agenda or agendas. And nothing that I have seen or heard over the last many years has convinced me otherwise.

The best expression of how I believe the modern media should operate comes from a man called C.P. Scott (1846 - 1932) who said:

      "The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly,
        and its first duty is to shun the temptations of a monoploy.
        Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of
        its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in
        what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode
        of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer
        wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred."

Our media certainly cannot put its hand on its heart and swear that this is exactly what it does. Lightning would strike them down if they did that!
Perhaps now might be an appropriate time for a Commission of Enquiry into the operations of the media in Trinidad & Tobago?

DANGEROUS TIMES FOR VENEZUELA (and by extension the Region)

Acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said something over the week-end that is as dangerous and potentially destabilising as can be imagined. He has claimed that he has evidence of a plot by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to kill his right wing rival, Enrique Capriles, and trigger a coup before the April 14th Presidential election. He said that the plan was to kill Mr. Capriles and then blame it on Mr. Maduro and his cronies thus destabilising the country.

Now you have only to look at this to see not only how stupid such an action would be for the United States, but how Maduro is really thinking. It would be a very, very stupid thing for the United States to do because Mr. Capriles is the one candidate who has been able to unite Venezuela's fractious opposition. The death of Mr. Capriles would set back Venezuelan opposition unity by several years ... and THAT would not be in the best interests of the United States! And whatever you might want to say or think about the Americans, one thing you cannot say is that they are stupid! They act (as do ALL countries) in what is in their own best interests ... and there is nothing wrong with that! And it canNOT be in America's best interests to destabilise the opposition in Venezuela.

But for Mr. Maduro to say that there is a plot by the Americans to kill Mr. Capriles quite frankly looks more like a very amateurish way of saying that he (Maduro) is planning to do just that and blame it on the Americans when it happens. I didn't hear Mr. Maduro say, for example, that as his Government has uncovered this dastardly plot that the Government was stepping up security for Mr. Maduro. Why not? Wouldn't this happen in a proper democracy? But Venezuela's government is anything but democratic.

This is not the first time that Mr. Maduro has made outrageous claims. He has said that Mr. Chavez's cancer was in fact caused by the Americans who somehow managed to infect him some two years ago. Of course, the world still has not been told exactly what type of cancer killed Mr. Chavez nor has the world got details of the treatment that the late President underwent. Nor do we know how the Americans could so cleverly infect Chavez and kill him so slowly. Assuming (though not accepting) that the Americans could have infected and did infect Chaez with something, wouldn't it have made more sense to have killed Mr. Chavez quickly rather than have it take two long years? But little details like this are irrelevant when you are dealing with such a liar as Maduro obviously is.

Maduro has clearly learned the lesson of Josef Goebbels (Adolf Hitler's Nazi Minister of Propaganda), that the bigger the lie and the more often it is repeated the more people will believe it.

The problem is that he is clearly signalling that he does not care an iota for the truth and neither does he care what he says about anybody or anything. It is also clear that he is a man who will say or do anything to retain power at all costs. I expect him to be declared the winner in next month's election. I do not expect there to be a free and fair election.  I also expect that Venezuela will continue to spiral downwards after the election and become more and more impoverished. The dangers are obvious for the ordinary Venezuelan citizen. The problem is that instability in one of the Region's largest and most powerful countries can cause ripple effects in the neighbourhood ... and T&T is very close to Venezuela!

Maduro is much more dangerous than most people realise. A leader who has to lie and effectively threaten to kill his political opponents in order to stay in power is a leader who ought to be condemned by all right thinking peoples every where. The Venezuelans can't do it. Obviously! But we can!!