WHAT ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’!

HERE is a sobering fact to consider with Trinidad and Tobago now the most violent small space on earth. 

Between 1995 and 1999, murders totalled 520 (122, 106, 101, 98 and 93), and yet then-Prime Minister Basdeo Panday inserted himself into the hot seat as National Security Minister. 

Panday rationalised that his buck-stops-with-me stance would protect citizens and serve to advance his government’s pro-business programme. 

He would lead the National Security Council, hold the heads of law enforcement agencies to account, drive legislation, and introduce innovative policies. 

The portfolio required “a proven leader of acknowledged stature,” he said. 

Panday was aided by formidable Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and his courageous decision to put the hangman to work. 

In contrast, the current administration’s anti-crime offensive fits a depiction by Albert Einstein. 

“Insanity,” Einstein said, “is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. 

So, this blood-drenched land is welcoming a new year with a hapless National Security Minister, the same tired and failed policies, and an absentee landlord as Prime Minister. 

Only a fool (and there are many among us) would confidently expect the blood-letting to ease in 2023.   

Instead, gangsters are consolidating and growing in numbers, expanding their field of operations into rural communities and toting modern arms and accessories. 

Anti-gang legislation has collapsed, just like intelligence-gathering and closed-circuit television. 

The middle class has crumbled, creating more joblessness and contributing to the stark poverty we are witnessing this Christmastime. 

Many are rushing to the exit door, confident of greener pastures for their respective families in a country with hands-on leadership and ingenious anti-crime measures. 

Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley is like the little boy in John Keats’ poem:  He stood in his boots and wondered. 

And wondered! 

Rowley breaks his silence only to defend his pointless administration and berate critics. 

“Don’t waste yuh time,” he told the party flock the other day, in response to repeated citizen demands for course correction on social and economic issues. 

The bootlickers cheered, even as more people are mowed down by brazen bandits and historic numbers are enduring a Christmas of misery. 

The Prime Minister is “missing in action” on critical national issues, says the Express newspaper, speaking for the voiceless. 

But those who chorused about “failed nation status” have gone curiously silent, just like some commentators who hyperventilated over the previous administration. 

Rowley “has failed to apply himself to his tasks and get the job done,” says Professor Selwyn Cudjoe, suggesting that the Prime Minister has the competence to lead this crisis-ridden land. 

If so, shouldn’t Rowley take over the steering at the National Security Ministry and save T&T from the murderous spree? 

In the meantime, be realistic when you utter “Happy New Year.” 

More than ever, our security is in our hands, the result of a detached and disinterested government and its failed “menu of measures”. 

Don’t expect relief from the crime curse. 

But because old habits die hard, permit me to wish you a Happy New Year.