A KANGALOO REPUBLIC

MURDERS and other bloody criminal acts are becoming even more common and grisly, with an escalation in Haitian-style executions.

Poverty and malnutrition are at their worst levels since the 1980s, the result of never-ending increases in the costs of food, medicine, transportation and housing, and a virtual wage freeze.

More and more people enduring starvation and suffering mental health problems are begging alms or sleeping on pavements.

Driftless and hungry Venezuelan migrants are pleading at street corners, especially in southern communities, defying the language barrier with cardboard signs bearing heartbreaking appeals.

The absence of a fire tender led to a gruesome death two minutes away, to follow a similar dreadful loss of a mother and daughter in April, and destruction of a business place a year ago.

An estimated $100 million in cocaine washes up on the eastern seaboard while a $1 billion worth of Coast Guard vessels are laid up, leaving the porous borders wide open to illicit trade.

Another year of school repair fiascos is having the customary impact on students’ education.

Food shortages and price hikes are the result of yet another breakdown of the long-suffering inter-island ferry service, with inattention from the line minister, the same one responsible for the sea of potholes.

An absence of polymer paper has stopped the issuance of birth certificates in a public service that is heading for collapse with the snail’s pace of digitisation.

Multinationals are fleeing – there was a net outflow of US $941 million last year – worsening the foreign exchange and unemployment crises.

Two international agencies say the country’s economic growth is the slowest in Caricom.

The insurance sector is among several that are withering – one of the largest companies is up for sale, and three recently closed down – and business leaders are finally admitting that crime and a declining economy are chasing investors.

“We can’t continue this way,” one private sector leader said last week, and another warned: “There is little or no job creation and existing jobs are at risk by shrinking levels of confidence.”

In the midst of this national emergency, surely the Head of State would utilise the crucial opening of the parliamentary term (our version of Britain’s exalted Throne Speech) to implore legislators to urgently confront our critical issues.

Yeah, right!

President Christine Kangaloo – brace for this! – wants legislation to protect the steelband.

Yes, the same instrument that has long been monetised around the world while our pan sits under breadfruit trees and our talented artistes play for seasonal small change.

“Pan gone and the panman stay,” Black Stalin mourned three decades ago.

To prove she could make a ridiculous statement and follow suit, Kangaloo switched four independent senators, still leaving the Upper House without a learned voice on the economy and energy.

Maybe it was before Kangaloo’s time, but independent benches were once occupied by respected thought leaders, men and women of fortitude and imposing stature.

I recall Michael de la Bastide, Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, Martin Daly, Gerald Furness-Smith, Allan Alexander, Daniel Teelucksingh, Professor Julian Kenny, among others.

This, of course, is not to take away from the rich diversity and intellectual heft that a sitar player and young calypsonian would bring to profound deliberations on critical legislation.  

Look where Trinidad and Tobago has reached!

A Kangaloo republic, indeed!