ERLA – POSTER CHILD OF NATIONAL FAILURE

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s declining public institutions have a face and personality.

It belongs to Erla Harewood-Christopher, the woefully ill-equipped Police Commissioner, whose pathetic track record is coupled with her overt satisfaction over her non-performance.

Having failed to meet all 11 crime reduction targets, Harewood-Christopher recently expressed fulfillment, even amid the spree of lawlessness and nine per cent criminal detection rate.

“We want to assure the public that the police is in control,” she said with a straight face, even as innocent citizens are mowed down by ever-brazen gangsters.

Just over a year into the job, it is obvious that the post is much too big for Harewood-Christopher, who is not measuring up against unrelenting criminals and does not inspire confidence among citizens and her troops.

On top of that, her repeated administrative bungling exposes a lack of discipline, experience, and a focused work ethic.

Her scolding by Justice Frank Seepersad follows her decision, several months earlier, to blank a sitting of the Joint Select Committee on National Security, pleading that she had “urgent and critical” matters before her.

Harewood-Christopher’s failure is a shady reflection on the Police Service Commission, which recommended her appointment, and Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, who endorsed her selection.

Apologists shield behind questionable statistics in stating that she is not the worst of T&T’s police chief.

That she is compared to the bottom of the barrel is itself a worrying comment on the officer leading the charge against unprecedented violence.

But as disturbing as her failure is to a besieged land, it fits snugly among other non-performing public institutions and office-holders.

The most obvious is the Cabinet, which, by all reasonable analyses, is presiding over regression in the quality of national life.

The judiciary is on the verge of collapse, Chief Justice Ivor Archie said three and a half years ago, burdened by a slew of problems.

There is no indication of an improvement in the process, and the delivery of justice is as painfully slow as flowing molasses.

The office of the Director of Prosecutions is hamstrung by a shortage of human resources, based on inadequate financing.

The weakened procurement legislation is evidently making little impact in ensuring accountability and transparency with the public purse.

In particular, hefty deals are being issued to preferred contractors for pre-election major projects, without appropriate scrutiny and oversight.

The Integrity Commission lost its fangs after Rowley accused then-sitting-commissioners of being “politically motivated.”

The commissioners were removed shortly after that stunning ambush of an independent institution.

There is a lack of public confidence in various other self-regulating bodies, including the all-important Elections and Boundaries Commission.

The Government has threatened to scrap service commissions, in another glaring bid to undermine and derail autonomy in the affairs of the public sector.

The public service continues to decline and State-funded authorities – most notably Water and Sewerage Authority, which costs taxpayers $2 million each year – are inefficient and bloated.

Alongside public sector dysfunction is a crippling malaise by citizen organisations – business, labour, academia, faith-based – which had historically watched the backs of the masses.

The institutional decline is a disturbing indication of collapsing society, in which there is patent politicisation of the system and negligence by influential private bodies.

Examine, for example, how commercial banks remain exploitative while they cream off historic profits.

Look at the widening gap between the rich and poor, the mass of wealth by a tiny minority, absence of consumer protection, and decline in artistic creativity.

These are all stark elements of a crumbling society.

Commissioner Harewood-Christopher is a poster child of such manifest failure.