The furious social media sparring after the curtailed budget debate in the House of Representatives shows – once again – what is wrong with the national discourse.
And it again reveals the fancy political foot-works of the Rowley administration in dodging public scrutiny and implementing its agenda.
It all has to do with Gary Griffith and the office of Police Commissioner, a critical matter that has escaped social media commentators, including finger-pointing moralisers and pontificating attorneys.
Whatever bungling led to the scrapping of the debate fitted into the government’s timeline for introducing relevant Police Service Commission legislation leading to the appointment of a new chief.
The government was so anxious for a rapid and summary conclusion to the House debate that it summoned a Saturday session, an occurrence that had not previously taken place in a generation.
There was even a plan to forego Sunday callaloo and curry (with or without VAT!) for an unprecedented sitting, and to usher in hurried meetings of the Finance Committee which typically follow the budget debate.
These steps were all designed to keep Griffith away from the Police Commissioner’s chair.
The term of Acting Police Chief McDonald Jacob expires next Friday, October 15, and Griffith has vowed to return to office then.
“I am on voluntary leave,” he said the other day.
The Rowley Government is determined to thwart Griffith’s homecoming through the legislative process of a new PSC and police chief.
The non-participation of government ministers in the budget debate was not an insurrection against embattled Attorney General Faris Al Rawi, although several Cabinet members view him as a national embarrassment.
The Rowley regime took its arguments to a Saturday night PNM public meeting, where – against all sound reasoning – Al Rawi received resounding support.
With respect to the budget debate, the government got its propaganda out first, with Colm Imbert tweeting late Saturday night that the opposition had collapsed on the job.
That prompted a response from the opposition, but by its mid-morning media conference, political hawkers had occupied familiar positions.
PNM partisans accused the opposition of having nothing to say on the budget.
UNC loyalists who want leadership change smelled blood.
Astoundingly, among the latter are professionals with competence and experience to present clinical analyses of the various budget measures.
The scrapped debate afforded them that prized opportunity, which they did not seize.
Saturday’s parliamentary hi-jinks denied taxpayers proper justifications on crucial matters with the national purse.
There was no accountability on vital and urgent questions on energy, health, security, public utilities and more.
The social media horseplay ignores the fact that an authoritarian regime played a get-out-of-jail card in shirking accounting for a $52 billion package.
The Finance Minister is projecting a $9 billion deficit, but experts forecast at last double that figure, and are asking about borrowings, sale of assets and the soaring national debt.
The government has matters to respond to on the chronic lack of investments, divestment of an industrial estate and port to the Chinese authorities, state of the health sector, repeat failed promises on food production, lack of growth in manufacturing – and much more.
To be sure, the culprits in the budget debate debacle must be publicly unmasked.
But, true to form, Saturday’s shenanigans have sparked shallow and senseless skirmishes among political flatterers.
Some commentators see the fiasco as reaffirmation of their long-held political positions, and are spewing toxic content.
The nation deserves better.
