HOW T&T FAILED PANDAY

ON January 25, 2001, Basdeo Panday appointed himself Minister of National Security. 

Panday said that as Prime Minister, he had a responsibility to ensure the country’s safety and security amid “rising crime rates.” 

There were 114 murders in 2000. 

Today, homicide statistics are more than five times higher – and the sitting Prime Minister is impassive. 

Dr. Keith Rowley has shown little interest in leading Trinidad and Tobago out of its most dreadful security crisis. 

Rowley is keeping faith with an unproductive Security Minister, who still has no effective anti-crime policies. 

Panday, who had gotten a national mandate six weeks earlier, listed crime-fighting as a top priority. 

On another matter, Panday – much of whose life’s crusade was for ethnic unity – saw T&T collapse into ruinous tribal tensions. 

Dr. Eric Williams infamously said one of his accomplishments was keeping oil and sugar workers apart, a not-too-subtle indication of exploiting ethnic divisions for partisan political gain. 

Panday, as leader of the Indo-based sugar workers’ union, collaborated with George Weekes, the powerful boss of Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union. 

In labour and politics, Panday campaigned for racial harmony. 

“Our society cannot reach its fullest potential unless we unite our human resources,” he stressed. 

Eminent writer George Lamming said two decades ago that Panday was “a solitary voice calling for an authentic civic nationalism which would embrace every self-defined ethnic type.” 

Panday’s retirement from politics would be “disastrous” to the country, Lamming said. 

The author said: “The pursuit of the politics of ethnicity will spell the social death of Trinidad and Tobago.” 

Renowned Caribbean man Lloyd Best said Panday “devoted a significant part of his public life to consistently advocating and working for national unity and preaching against race hate and intolerance.” 

Panday had also envisioned a Singapore-type society with a rich bank of skills, modern and competitive industries, functioning institutions, and an effective public service. 

Most of all, a common national goal! 

Instead, look at T&T today. 

The economy remains a one-trick pony of a declining energy sector, and independent bodies – including the Integrity Commission – are being undermined. 

But the biggest regret for Panday must be the collapse of his relentless crusade for social justice. 

When he scolded the “parasitic oligarchy,” he was blazing the corporate elites who were creaming obscene profits off the backs of the working poor. 

When he agonised about the working class being “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” he wanted a fair share of the pie for common people. 

Instead, the rich have gotten richer, there are billion-dollar business monopolies (including in crucial pharmaceutical imports), and banks are churning out record profits while terrorising small operators.   

Following the Covid-19 shutdown, corporate giants jumped into the playing fields that were the preserve of small enterprises. 

My friend Miss Martha, who provided tasty hot lunches, closed her doors after a nearby conglomerate began selling prepared meals, and she was undone by economies of scale. 

There is a flight of the middle class, entrepreneurs and professionals who provide jobs and are essential to a country’s economic health. 

The Rowley Government has facilitated the wild expansion of what Best branded “the validating elite.” 

The Prime Minister said in 2020:  “We have to allow the rich to get richer.” 

The food import bill has ballooned to $7.3 billion, from $4 billion in 2014. 

In all of this, the trade union sector is blissfully asleep. 

Panday’s years-long militancy for economic, social and political justice, has been undone by an indifferent country, which failed him big time. 

The lion-fighter’s work has gone to waste.