OWTU SPEAKS –2003-01-31
EXECUTIVE REMUNERATION
Rennie Dumas left the Senate last Tuesday with egg all over his face and Errol Grimes, we are sure, must be a most embarrassed man. Such is often the result of the grimy business of administrative vacillation and political cover up.
The Public Utilities Minister’s handling of the Opposition’s questions in respect of Executive Remuneration at the Water & Sewerage Authority was atrocious if not very sadly nincompoop. First, he needed time to access the relevant information. Next, he needed more time to verify and assure the authenticity of the figures. And now, last Tuesday, it was water more than flour and a sheepish attempt to extricate the unholy from the double standards and continuing bad practices of the past.
Nobody but the rabid party back and the subliminally naïve would believe that the Board of Commissioners at WASA would have approved such ‘decent salary’ hikes for the Executive Management since March last year without reference to the line Minister and the Public Sector Negotiations Committee on which the said Minister is a member. We do not believe it – except if that Board of Commissioners represented the ‘Rogue Elephants’ of whom a former Prime Minister spoke during the worst incidences of corruption and malfeasance in the political governance of this country.
The obviously marked inexperience of the Minister, is what would most likely be made the excuse, in subtle attempts to gloss over what was surely an agenda to execute different strokes for different folks. The stretched explanation given to the Senate and the country does not hold water. The Minister owes a better and more truthful explanation, or the Board of Governors ought to be called to book for not reporting to its line Minister and its refusal to refer decisions and/or recommendations on Terms and Conditions of Employment for Non-Unionised Staff and Contract officers to the Public Sector Negotiations Committee for Ministerial sanction. This must not be allowed to pass as ‘water under the bridge’ – no! not just so!. The matter is not solved by the Minister merely instructing that the relevant WASA personnel be reverted to their previous remuneration packages.
Every such person is now potentially disgruntled and with reason too. And their situation – each one of them – is aggravated, psychologically and otherwise, by recommendations immediately following, to substantially increase the Salaries of Government personnel – increases which one might argue, are well deserved and necessary. It may well be argued too, that if the bunglers should get more pay, the Executive Management and Employees of WASA deserve better.
And if the TSTT workers have contributed to the many $m’s of profits that, that Company has made and indeed, it’s workers who made those profits, then, they deserve and must have a better deal than the Board and Management of TSTT and the PSNC are offering. The length of the strokes between one set of folks and another is too disproportionate and must be ameliorated. The Government’s mishandling of the many issues before it, including a deteriorating industrial relations climate, will have a greater push than the political call to civil disobedience and organized disorder made by some political operatives who are up to no good. There is a particular Employers’ Advertisement on Radio that seeks, uncharacteristically to promote workers’ militancy. That group however, has never been and is not now supportive of the interests of workers and the unemployed. At the same time the Caroni (1975) issue is being plannassed and badly handled by all sides and particularly the government; at the same time, BWIA lands a con job retrenchment on 617 workers to save some dollars. But the most callous and asinine so far has been the statement by a fool that the Government saved money and profited by the Doctors’ action and the resultant crisis in Health. Do we count how many lives were lost and how many more were disrupted? One experiences such a headache and feeling of nausea – symptomatic of course – when people in position of great responsibility just keep putting their feet in their mouth or just generally play the donkey.
One also dreads the deleterious repercussions of this government performing so badly and engaging in such arrogance that the sins, corruption and general despicable behaviour of its immediate predecessor administration is obliterated and forgotten. It must not be allowed! But, this is the land of Bacchanal and acute short sightedness. So, say what, a very pleasant evening and peaceful and happy weekend is wished to all.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2003-01-29
OWTU condemns the BWIA sackings
Any blind but perceptive Workers Representative would have seen Aleong’s and Duprey’s ‘axe handle’ for more than a mile from the cockpit.
BWIA was supposed to be another model of Private Sector ingenuity and inventive capacity for business success and growth over public sector ineffectiveness, sloppy management and business failures. But here again is an example of the Private Sector and especially the local private sector, which Ken Valley loves so much, not having any monopoly over anything – not finance, not good business principles, not common sense, not anything. They can only charge a fee, earn a commission, buy at a price, mark-up and sell at another for a profit. But they organize nothing, make nothing and largely own nothing. We make them important by our stupidity. There are so-called workers’ representatives. Some still alive and active, who, in the instant case of BWIA, supported the privatization of the National airline and the emasculation of the principle of the ownership structure of its employees’ Pension Funds in the 1991 – 1994 period of Ken Valley’s auctioning of state assets. Let us never forget the genesis of BWIA’s endemic mismanagement. It was there before September 11th, 2001.
The retrenchment of the more than 600 workers of the Airline’s less than 2500 employees was very carefully planned and orchestrated. About that, there should be no doubt. All of the recent appeals by the Board, Management and the Government too for concessions by the Unions and workers were really to make the retrenchment packages cheaper. That was a play, very effectively used against Auto industry workers in the USA and about which the OWTU has always warned workers in Trinidad and Tobago.
It was 1983 when the Reagan/Thatcher anti-worker ‘axis of evil’ against developing economies was at its unchallenged highest, and after Mr. Reagan had ordered the dismissal of all the Air Traffic controllers in the nation, that the us Auto Industry Managers, who had failed to keep in step with modern development and who, were challenged by a more modern Japanese manufacturer for the Auto Market, threatened to shut down their Plants and then called in the Unions and Workers Representatives and engaged them in a round of very intensive concession bargaining in an insidious bid to save costs but disguised as a programme to save jobs and promote security. The Unions and Workers’ Representatives were conned into rolling back $B of hard won benefits including wage and salary reductions. No sooner had the ink of their signatures dried on their hassled agreements; more than 300,000 workers were retrenched on the basis of much reduced terms. Some were later rehired on even further reduced contract terms on the basis of new competencies for a retooled Auto Industry.
Twenty years after that betrayal and official banditry contrived against workers, I find it incomprehensible that the supposedly enlightened here would be fooled by Lawrence Duprey and Conrad Aleong, supported by Kenneth Valley.
First the Government divests and assumes the then existing debts and liabilities. It is some time after that, called upon to infect new capital into a restructured BWIA.
It is called upon again and it extends some $13M (US or TT) I do not now recall, the management folks there are like balloons filled with so much hot air it is difficult to keep them within radar – another $13M is extended.
I read now that the Government has agreed to the formation of an Aircraft Maintenance Technical Company at Piarco to repair and overhaul airframes, avionics, components and specialized air transport equipment. But for whom will this company affect those repairs? For whom will it work? Did Mr. Aleong not say that BWIA’s Mechanical & Engineering Department could not be sustained and that such works as this department would have done will be but-sourced to Delta Airways in the US? Is this the recognition and result of all those very proud Trini years of BWIA’s air worthiness and sound safety record?
Or are we witnessing the high altitudes of asinine fancy at BWIA and the Ministry of Finance?
It seems to us that Aleong should go home and Valley sent to a common sense school.
OWTU condemns the BWIA sackings and demands the immediate reinstatement of the 617 employees.
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OWTU SPEAKS 27TH JANUARY 2003
THE TERROR LAB REPORT
The ‘Terror lab report’ is indeed very suspect.
In the wake of the negative US and British Trade advisories, a report such as was highlighted yesterday, without state security authorities having first pass at it, suggests a level of indiscipline that is unsurpassed and a subscription to sensationalism that abandons all caution to the wind, and that surrenders national interest and security of the people to the whims of perceived and alleged terrorists.
I cannot understand nor will I accept that a respectable newspaper and its reporter will accept under blindfold, a conducted tour of a ‘terrorist war factory’ and then take the irresponsible step to publish, advertise and exacerbate frayed nerves and anxieties over crime and potential terrorist activities. Where are the notions of a responsible press?
I believe that the whole story is a set of crap but we may well find that incalculable damage has been done. Shouldn’t the newspapers’ discoveries and reports have gone first to the Security Intelligence Services for investigation and appropriate action before a weary public is confounded and alarmed – even by the puerile combination of amateurs -.
Who benefits from the insidious campaign of infamy against Trinidad and Tobago? Why are we so willingly aiding the concoction by those who might well be trying to place us in the ‘axis of evil?’ We here on these too specs of dirt – Trinidad and Tobago – are so foolishly harmless that we are capable of hurting only ourselves. Of course we have more than our share of common political crooks, thieves, two x four murderers and petty criminals but terrorists? Setups if we have terrorists here then the United States and Britain will not pass purgatory, far more see St. Peter. As was suggested two weeks ago in one of our editions, Hugo Chavez and Venezuela’s poor will win the struggle against destabilization in that country. Chavez is indeed winning. The opposition forces are disintegrating and one of its leaders, coming from the CTV has already begun to change his tongue in the characteristic manner of the unsound and baseless champion jesters in the courts of the rich and powerful. PDVSA’s production has inched back up above the Million-barrel mark on its way to pre strike levels of circa 3.2 bpd.
So confident is Hugo Chavez and so disorganized and almost demoralized is the big business opposition that President Chavez was able without difficulty to leave Caracas to attend the World Social Forum currently taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil. But still enough is not known here as to the happenings in Venezuela, our nearest neighbour. To that end, the OWTU will next week host a Public Forum at which Venezuelan representatives who have been in the heart of the crisis will address these issues. Stay tuned for details.
Have a good evening.
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OWTU SPEAKS JANUARY 24TH 2003
OUR STATE ENTERPRISES
- On the matter of Executive Remuneration –
The methods used may invoke many questions and debate, but given the underlying factors and foundation of the Trinidad and Tobago economy, I can support no argument against the WASA CEO receiving a competitive salary. I do not support however, anybody having an open ended and unlimited Entertainment Account. On the other hand, if the Chief Executive Officer is qualified, capable and competent at his responsibilities and functions, a base salary of $50,000 per month is not unreasonable or too high – even at the Water and Sewerage Authority.
Our State Enterprises have been experiencing a tough time attracting and retaining the best quality staff at most levels of their organizations, yet there is the hassle and the haggle over the very reasonable and affordable pay demands that workers make from time to time. And there is never a quarrel, not a murmur over the hefty packages that the economy is made to afford to the many third and fourth rate blue eyed Managers and consultants that we import from time to time for tours of duty in both our state and private sectors.
I don’t know that it is a crime to upgrade Grimes and perhaps, that is not the issue. The Minister clearly made an issue though of official government double standards. Had there not been double standards, the Minister should have had no difficulty relating to the Parliament, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding salaries and perquisites at the Executive Level at WASA. And the Minister must have known, he must know or he is either lazy, incompetent or has something to hide. I think it is the latter.
How does the Minister and his government deal with the TSTT workers who have been making loud profits for TSTT but who have been offered zilch no doubt with the government’s concurrence? How does the Minister and his government justify its actions at WASA which is loss making against its parsimonious and discriminatory position in respect of workers at TSTT that is profit making? And the Minister must know, of course he knows of Corporation Sole’s directive with regard to emolument adjustments in the State Enterprise and Statutory Authorities.
I hope, I just hope that Oil and Electricity workers from Management to Shop Floor will be considered to the extent of their importance in the economy.
These are the backbone of the economy. And their Wage and Salary issues are due to begin shortly.
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OWTU SPEAKS JANUARY 17th 2003
DEBATE ON THE MINIMUM WAGE
There are too many experts whose diatribe in the print and electronic media go unchallenged, leaving the quacks with a continuing air of superior knowledge and an assumed aura of expert wisdom. Some of them are very clearly with a don’t care a damn attitude and an everything for higher profit perspective and class position. Others, who own nothing, are the less than knowledgeable but ambitious migrants from a class that continues to be subliminally exploited and most often used as window dressing and a buffer for the former. They are both spewing crap but of course, it is the latter who make the struggle more difficult. I speak on the continuing debate on the Minimum Wages Order.
The experts who have dominated the debate so far have all but said, that the Minimum Wage should revert to the $3.00 per hour at which it was held for many years before Partap. Yes, there had been established Minimum Wages before this Government and its predecessor administrations too.
And even when that miniscule figure of $3.00 existed, the Merchants and Commission Agents of Hart Street, the nuts and bolts and screw-driver Manufacturers and Employer representatives found reason to oppose it. They have not changed – their arguments and that of their minion messengers are the same today as they were in the 1980’s and even late 70’s. ‘You cannot increase costs without increasing productivity’, they argued then and want to postulate now. But they have it wrong sided. To increase productivity, you would receive systems and sometimes invest in improved machinery and labour. There seems never an objection to spending – investing indeed, in new machinery. But there is always a great resistance against investing in labour. They are ignorant it seems, to the organization of the chain in the process of production. It is: Capital – Commodity – Capital. And the extent to which you invest capital, which includes labour, and organize your systems – it is to that extent that productivity can be measured and increased.
What do they say again? They say that “increased global competitiveness could result in the closure of some of these companies who pay minimum wage.” I think that these may well be those companies, which have been violating the law and have been paying their workers below the stipulated $7.00 per hour. And I am appalled that today; there are still those who are promoting low wages as the means to remaining competitive in the global market place. Backward and myopic they must be. Have we been competing with the US and North America? The minimum wage in the US, decreed by the President from time to time and depending on inflation and price movements, is now the equivalent of $36.00 TT.
I said in an earlier edition that the Manufacturers were with their usual uninformed, misguided and unconscionable response, influenced by the profit motive above all else. All of their skewed attempts at rationale have confirmed this.
Let me deal with the latest response that I read in Today’s Express – ‘Higher Minimum Wage No Way to Fight Poverty’ says the Industrial Relations Manager of the Employers’ Consultative Association.
Now, this is someone whom I thought knew better. And it is the driving reason behind my talking this a second time.
The dear student of Industrial Relations contends, “that every increase in the minimum wage will reduce employment at the lowest end of the pay scale and will not provide a livable wage and fight poverty.”
‘WRONG,’ I say.
She says – ‘Were the minimum wage raised today to $16 or more, thousands of Trinidadians would report to work tomorrow only to find their jobs no longer available to them’, and they would know immediately that the Minimum Wage Order was responsible.”
“Uninformed, ill-informed and skewed,” I say.
Let us deal with her first point:
If increases in the minimum wage did not contribute to poverty alleviation then there should be no argument whatsoever for increases in old age pensions and social welfare programmes. There is generally a relationship between these, the Minimum Wage where ever it exists and the Index of Retail Prices and general standards of living in the community. The Minimum Wage Madam ECA is one aspect of a programme of poverty alleviation and it is one of the ways by which the economic trickle down is effected – part of the economic theory postulated by organizations like the ECA. And is the ECA’s Industrial Relations Manager arguing against the three (3) year cycle of pay increases brought about by Collective bargaining? I hope not. If she gets my drift.
The next point:
“Were the Minimum Wage to be raised to $16 or more thousands would lose their jobs,” the lady said. I doubt that the former worker is suggesting that it is OK for a raise to $15. Of course, her ECA employers will not let her.
But I should like to advise that the contrast is true. If the Minimum Wage is reduced, indeed if all wages were reduced there will not be a concomitant increase in employment. Food for thought.
Have a good evening and a peaceful and enjoyable weekend.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2003 JANUARY 13
HUGO CHAVEZ MUST WIN
It was twenty- nine years – not twenty (27) as I mistakenly said last Friday – twenty nine years ago, September I think it was, that another popularly elected leader was deposed and killed. Salvador Allude was a civilian Socialist, loved by all but the Plunderers of Chile’s wealth and it’s mineral and natural resources.
President Allude sought to ameliorate the hunger, pain, dispossession and grief of the Chilean masses – the poverty stricken majority of that country’s population. He introduced major social and economic reforms including a reorganization of the Health Services, Progressive Minimum wage policies and some state control of major resources to assist in bringing about some equity and humaneness in the distribution of wealth and goods and services. Of course, that provoked the ire of the rich and powerful, certain of the military elite and most certainly US anti- socialist interests, many of the same poor but the more lumpen ones, with pots and pans were mobilized, given a small change and put on the streets in opposition to the democratically and very popularly elected Allende government. The CIA rallied some sellout and corrupt trade unionists and large sections of the workers in the mineral and essential service industries in a call for democracy too. That call was answered by defender of the rich powerful and mighty, one Augusto Pinochet. Allende and many of the defenders of the workers' and the people’s interests were killed cold blooded, many leaders banished and forced into exile and Army General Augusto Pinochet installed as supreme power over a people made hapless thereafter. That was the end of democracy and the beginning of entrenched below zero level of poverty and tyranny until CIA running dog Pinochet’s unceremonious exit in disgrace two – three years ago.
The crisis in Venezuela today features many aspects of the anti- democracy, anti-people, anti-national interests, corrupt schisms and schemes carried out by powerful interests in Chile twenty-nine years ago. And like they were then some trade union leaders are again involved for their own corrupt self-interest. Hugo Rafael Chavez Frais is something of a puzzle, I find. He is a retired army Captain of sorts. He is consumed by his enthusiasm for the politics yet he is in my view not a politician, as his love and admiration for Fidel Castro do not make a Socialist. Chavez possesses a social conscience and abhors the greed and corruption of the past four (4) decades that have dispossessed and impoverished 80% of the Venezuelan population of mainly mixed African and indigenous descent. For this, Chavez must win not just this round but the entire bout.
As is now well known, in April last year, the elite, acting with external big business and government influence i.e. – external government influence, staged a military coup. Women and other people from the poorest neighbourhoods of Caracas were the first to descend from the hills, risking their lives to demand the return of their elected president. Filing the streets, the population, supported by army rank – and – file reinstated their President and his government. The Venezuelan elite – and if we take another look at the faces who mounted the Mickey mouse demonstration in Port of Spain last week you will see how that elite is represented – the Venezuelan elite is furious that since 1998 a President who does not reflect them in any way, has ascended to power representing those whom the elite has robbed and defrauded.
Despite retaining preferential treatment for it’s oil imports, the US which has countenanced the corrupt manipulation of Venezuelan oil revenue, also fears the policies of the Chavez government: no privatization, preferential oil prices for Cuba, Guyana and certain other small Caribbean Countries.
For all of this Hugo Chavez must win this round and the whole bout.
I move from this, regrettably, to respond to one Anand Ramlogan. In his Saturday Guardian column, ‘The politics of labour’ Ramlogan said among other things that I have been silent on the Caroni workers’ issue; that the All Trinidad Sugar Union boss was left to stand alone. Ramlogan infers that I might have an alliance with the PNM and that I perhaps have one posture for issues affecting Afro- Trinidadian workers and quite another response or non-response to issues affecting indo – Trinidadian workers. My response to this forced ripe lawyer is brief very brief indeed.
Anand might be a budding legal luminary but I find him acutely short on common sense and, without good manners. And good manners are cultivated developed in practice. That is my general statement.
Now, if Ramlogan had been listening, he would have heard me condemn the UNC/Yetming – Assam authored plan for Caroni in 2000/2001 which I understand is the same as the PNM plan. When I criticised that plan, Mr. luminary, the leadership of the All Trinidad Union roundly cussed me out and put me in my place. They said that ‘sugar is for sugar workers’ and that I should mind my own damn business. I am with the view that my learned friend being a UNC spokesman and operative supported that too. Next, Ramlogan sees only black and white, Indian and African in the politics, in labour and trade unionism. I am not that myopic or primordial. Workers issues from my perspective, are issues affecting working people, not Indians or Africans.
And lastly Ramlogan is assured that I have no alliance with the PNM and that the reason that I do not and will not have any alliance with the UNC is that I abhor the racism and corruption for which it became notorious. I think that I comment on most important issues. I am by no means silent. Ramlogan perhaps does not listen. I might still comment on and ask questions as to why he left the Petrotrin Board.
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OWTU SPEAKS 10TH JANUARY 2003
NEW DEBATE ON THE MINIMUM WAGE
It was not unexpected that the Employer’s Consultative Association and the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association would come out against any decision to raise the national minimum wage. A new round of debate and quarrel even, has started over the level of this minimum subsistence wage at a paltry $8.00 per hour.
Some will even argumentatively question the appropriateness and necessity of a minimum wage at all – and yet countenance the ever increasing price of goods and services – Flour has gone up, water rates are going up – if you get my drift!
President of the Manufacturers Association is quoted as saying - ‘You cannot increase costs without increasing productivity. Increase in global competitiveness could result in the closure of some of these companies who pay minimum wage. Mr. Dalgleish reportedly said. The same people whom the government is trying to protect will be out of a job, the TTMA boss man – continued.
Now that is the usual uninformed, misguided and unconscionable response from those who think ‘profit’ before all else. It suggests that the exploitation is deeper and more widespread than appears on the surface because the TTMA President is not talking here for the security industry and the services sector. His response is as unintelligent as the lyrics of the season’s three controversial calypsos are foolish.
That the Labour Minister and his government have agreed to raise the minimum wage at all is commendable. But that the level should be $8, $10 or even $12 or $15 is not just pulled out of a hat or a dream like a Play Whe number. It must be the result of a deliberate market and socio economic study and ‘means test’. It must take into consideration and make special provision for the circumstances of those small pension earners whose incomes are themselves at a subsistence level and therefore may not be able to afford the domestic help on which they must depend.
There is a real problem outside there that requires a multi pronged approach to establishing a minimum wage and providing for periodic reviews. On the one hand there are genuine cases of dependent persons finding it impossible to pay the stipulated minimum wage to their hired help an on the other – and there is where the real problem is – thousands of workers are exploited by employers in medium to major business undertakings – manufacturing, construction, security and other services.
So that, it must be clearly determined for whom that minimum wage is intended as it surely could not be for all unorganized and unrepresented workers. And it is in that regard therefore that the Minister should hasten the process of implementing the adjunct sectoral minimum wages.
But let me also hasten to say that while all of that is laudable and indicate good intentions, by themselves, they are not enough. Sectoral Minimum Wages must not be a substitute for decent and affordable better wages and general conditions. To do that will be to institutionalize further the brazen exploitation of workers employed by contractors in major construction projects in the energy sector and in the security industry. In these areas, the Unions to which these otherwise itinerant workers would appeal, will very ably negotiate competitive wages and general conditions that will ameliorate the high incidence of wage disputes and industrial action on major construction projects.
What is needed here is for the Minister to initiate, as a matter of urgency, the liberalization of the process of Recognition, Registration and Certification of Unions as the representative body for the purposes of collective bargaining on behalf of workers on fixed term construction contracts.
While we appreciate very much the Labour Minister’s implementation of his government’s campaign promises, we feel certain that Unions will much prefer that the sectoral minimum wage be enforced floor conditions only and that enjoy the unfettered right to immediate recognition and the freedom to collective bargaining. The Minister is already familiar with our many submissions on this issue.
On Monday, I shall return to the crisis in Venezuela and draw parallels with the CIA led crisis in Chile 27 years ago. Let us be informed. Let us be aware. The leopard never changes its spots nor does the imperialist hawk, its feathers.
Have a Peaceful and crime free weekend T & T.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2003-01-08
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OWTU SPEAKS 2003-01-06
Country First
This programme too, was bitten by the holiday bug and so we are back on Air today for our first edition for 2003.
The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union prays that God’s blessings of Peace, Progress and a Productive and Prosperous New Year be bestowed upon our still beautiful but beleaguered country. We commiserate with all the families of those who have been directly affected by the spate of criminal activities, and of the criminals too. There are many challenges with which we will all be faced in 2003. These challenges will call on all of our dedication and very determined application of individual and collective energies if we are to weather and survive the gathering storm, and succeed.
Last year we suffered the many disadvantages of the political uncertainties of 18/18, no Parliament and, as a consequence, government that was merely in office but largely powerless and ineffective.
It was a year – or at least a good nine (9) months of it – during which nothing happened but the escalation of criminal activity and violence. It was a case of marking time on the same spot, a year of indecision and the proverbial twiddling of the thumb – the country was essentially at a standstill.
This precipitated the loss of opportunity by the sate owned oil companies to benefit more from the decent and upward trending oil prices that have been prevailing and prevented the realization of the additional jobs that an aggressive drilling and work over programme would have provided. The management’s slothfulness was accentuated further by the then existing political game balance. And the same was the situation elsewhere. Indeed, the situation rendered itself to exploitation by well coordinated strikes and acts of civil disobedience except that the conscious and Vanguard workers and their Unions were about country first and was not persuaded by the appeals by those of a former corrupt political administration. All round us – in the state enterprises, in the services sector and everywhere – the decay, the social and psychological degradation, the moral decay – precipitated by the previous six (6) years of the official violence of cronyism, discrimination, nepotism, malfeasance, political banditry and corruption – were evident.
They persist still, today, in some areas. And that constitutes one of the important challenges with which we must contend in this New Year. The high incidence of crime at the blue collar and street level is not without a direct relationship with the socio-economic backwardness afflicting some levels of the society. And of course, the boldness with which such criminal activity is executed is not without example and encouragement by the commission of white collar crimes and corruption at top official society levels.
The challenges which 2003 brings are not beyond our ability and resolve to overcome. We need only to resolve and be committed to the preservation of our small speck of earth. One of those challenges is an attitude change that will see us not taking for granted our many blessings with abundant natural resources. These resources must be aggressively but programmatically and, with discipline, exploited in the interest of the broader national community.
We are challenged to ensure an orderly and deliberate development of social and physical infrastructure and engage in an economic transportation you deal with the serious interconnecting issues of crime and social displacement of large numbers of citizens. Planning and Good organization must regain its mystique in T&T’s politics 2003 may well be our last chance to give proper direction and march to the way forward for T&T.
A productive, peaceful and prosperous New Year to all.