PRESIDENT WEEKES AND ‘THE POINT OF NO RETURN’

By KEN ALI 

The Armed Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives this week pressed top military leaders on the Afghanistan war. 

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also endured hours of tough questioning on the conflict, including on the loss of American lives. 

A congressional committee is probing the January 6 attempted insurrection. 

In these and other critical matters, the American President, the most powerful person in the world, does not get a free pass. 

The Trinidad and Tobago parliamentary system is different, of course, and is largely modelled after the British Westminster structure. 

In Britain, Matt Hancock, Secretary for Health, has had to come clean on the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in an enquiry by members of both Houses of Parliament. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was made to account on several occasions on both the medical and economic responses. 

In T&T, parliamentary committees are as useless as before they were refashioned a few years ago. 

For example, the Joint Select Committee on National Security – mandated to enquire into “crime: the security, safety and protection of citizens” – could only recommend in 2020 that a certain Opposition parliamentarian “should not serve as a member.” 

Legislators were idle bystanders as the moving parts of the Police Service Commission sham played out, leading to the overdue resignation of disgraced Chair Bliss Seepersad. 

Finance Minister Colm Imbert has not had to face the music from elected representatives on his economic measures while thousands of small businesses are shutting down and workers joining the breadline. 

No one in authority has been probed on the country reversing from US $1.5 billion to negative US $439 million a year in direct foreign investments. 

There is “pain everywhere,” the Express newspaper editorialised, with “even salaried workers … complaining about running on empty…”  

The parliamentary system is matched by virtually all independent institutions losing their legitimacy by either being politically polluted or in a wasteland of inefficiency. 

Whatever became of the Law Association during the PSC soap opera? 

In the midst of the troubling state of affairs, there is President Paula Mae Weekes, who assured us in her March 2018 inaugural address that “we can lament … or make up a hard mind to make T&T a better place.” 

President Weekes admitted people are saying the country “is perilously close to the point of no return, crime, corruption, abysmal public service and an ineffective justice system,” and “we will soon be, if we not there already, a failed State.” 

Two years later, President Weekes groused that “citizens have come to feel they have been repeatedly forsaken, betrayed and mamaguyed…” 

We do not know if she has discussed her “failed State” anguish at statutory meetings with Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley. 

If she did, was she told to, ahem, smack his posterior? 

She has not revealed whether she talked about the Police Commissioner Merit List with the Prime Minister, as is being alleged. 

The moralising Head of State also failed to act on her expressed “concern” on the relevant PSC legal notice. 

The President is the guardian of the national constitution, and although she has no executive authority, the country generally depends on her to watch our backs and defend our interests. 

The law was no good, the Head of State conceded, but taxpayers had to fund legal advice from eminent jurist Rolston Nelson, who ruled that it was unlawful. 

Why didn’t the President, a retired jurist, no less, put her foot in the door and block the legal order? 

How many other questionable statutes and orders has she let slide? 

In a country of political honour, Faris Al Rawi would have chucked it in as Attorney General over this defective legal notice and a litany of legislative duds. 

But Al Rawi has dug in his heels, called in favours from legal and media pals, and received stout support from Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, who flippantly dismissed the flawed law as “an error.” 

While Rome burns, we are eyewitnesses to an ill-suited Attorney General, a passive President, an ill-tempered Prime Minister, and useless institutions. 

Circumstances are dire to the point that even reticent Archbishop Jason Gordon laments that “our country has become so corrupt,” and “we have become so disrespectful to each other that it is difficult to keep your soul intact…” 

Surely, even within her tight constitutional remit, the President could speak about the pressing issues of crime, poverty and general hopelessness sweeping the land.   

There are thousands of struggling families who send their children to bed hungry while big boys talk glibly about selling luxury vehicles. 

President Biden on August 23 wrote to volunteer group Sewa International affirming that “your efforts are not just saving lives, but they are helping get our lives back.” 

Charity organisations in T&T are a major factor in keeping the starvation wolf from the door. 

Sewa TT has been assisting the downtrodden, as are other charity groups and faith-based organisations, all of which deserve acknowledgement and appreciation. 

These are troubling times, and we need a President who meets the moment by being the conscience of our nation. 

She must assure us she is an intense patriot striving from her vaulted position to save us from “the point of no return.” 

Or, is she scared of being told to smooch the prime minister’s derriere?