THE rule of law is collapsing in Trinidad and Tobago.
The once-leading Caribbean country is in the throes of a raging humanitarian crisis, overridden with gang violence, floods with each shower, stark poverty and joblessness, high cost of living, and decaying institutions.
The political administration, a dreadful cocktail of incompetence and arrogance, is presiding over the unrelenting destruction of a proud nation.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is cold and insensitive while citizens tremble in fear as armed criminals stalk the land, murdering, raping, and plundering at will, confident that they would evade the law.
Dr. Rowley is clutching onto the phenomenally failed Fitzgerald Hinds as Minister of National Security, and flippantly dismissing offers of assistance from Gary Griffith, the most successful Police Commissioner of recent years.
The Prime Minister has no clue how to solve the scourge of our time – and, with his nose in the air, he won’t listen to advice.
The Prime Minister has steadfastly refused to confront the primary causes of crime – gun and drug-running, porous borders, illegal refugees, social and economic inequity – and is energised only in lambasting patriotic nationals.
Trinidad and Tobago, which had dared to dream only a few years ago of becoming a developed nation, is now along a narrow path to the wretched anarchy of Haiti.
The hoopla of anti-gang laws has achieved nothing, and businessmen, vendors, and other law-abiding family people are shot at will and there is hardly ever an arrest.
Small businesses, which were already floundering as a result of weak government policies during the Covid-19 shutdown, are in danger of being wiped out at the hands of weapon-brandishing goons.
Entrepreneurs are shutting up shop, throwing in the keys, and hurriedly seeking to take their families to safer lands.
With the decimation of the middle class, unemployment and poverty are climbing, and there is a flight of capital and a worsening brain drain.
Tormented citizens remain dangerously at risk, while their leader plays golf, throws barbs at the opposition, and takes the high moral ground on whimsical matters.
The crime crisis is simply the worst element in a country so blighted by poor governance that the first rainfall of the season led to floods.
The promises to dredge watercourses that followed the historic floods of last November have been exposed as mere headline-grabbing political mamaguy.
The country must, therefore, brace for more disastrous floods during the peak of the rainy season, which would again ruin homes, appliances, vehicles, school books, and food crops.
Instead of resolving this perennial nightmare with the sizable allocated budget, the uncaring authorities are overseeing more flooding disasters.
Port of Spain was swamped by a mere 10 minutes of rain, and its befuddled Mayor Joel Martinez has brazenly called a probe.
In typical T&T governance, the findings of the enquiry would come sometime down the road, quite possibly after further disastrous floods.
It is obvious that the contagious disease of official failure has now spread to the city mayor.
Alongside with those crises is the blatant subversion of independent institutions, with the office of procurement regulator being the latest.
The procurement legislation has been finally proclaimed after being hollowed out and shamelessly delayed for years by the government.
But Trinidad and Tobago has been without a procurement regulator since January, and, therefore, there could be no investigations into widespread bid-rigging.
The government also timed the proclamation of the legislation to follow the awarding of major taxpayer contracts, which would render them out of the reach of the regulator.
Similarly, the Balisier House edifice – estimated at a staggering $100 million – is safe from a procurement enquiry.
In the meantime, there are reports of multi-million-dollar suspect activities by big-ticket State agencies, like the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDECOTT).
These catastrophes exist in an environment of high joblessness, grinding poverty and ever-climbing cost of living, with food prices having soared by an average of 70 per cent since 2018.
There is rampant price-gouging and shrinkflation (downsizing items for the same price), and rising cost of pharmaceuticals, all being endured by the fixed wage-earners and struggling pensioners.
The Rowley administration is detached from these and other humanitarian crises, cocooned in a world of privilege while the average citizen puts his life and welfare at risk each day.
Trinidad and Tobago’s descent into chaos and instability has been swift and calamitous, having occurred in less than a decade.
The rule of law has broken down, the nation is on the run, and the Prime Minister could hardly be bothered.
Welcome to Trinidad and Tobago!
PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, who is playing down reports of a $431 million cost…
THE local diplomatic community is still stunned that Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley held talks…
IT’S happening before our eyes. Attorney Gilbert Peterson pocketed almost $9 million with respect to…
PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley was informed months ago that notorious Venezuelan gangs were carrying…
THE governments of Guyana, Barbados and Dominica last week gave Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi…
LAVENTILLE West PNM party group and constituency officials are convinced that Fitzgerald Hinds was pushed…