The Feasibility of Unfeasible Governance!

On Friday September 4, 2009 Gary Hunt revealed close to a billion dollars was spent preparing the site for the proposed Tarouba Sporting Complex. For the sake of repetition and to ensure that the point gets across, not that I doubt anyone’s ability to comprehend.....close to a billion dollars was spent ‘preparing the site for the proposed Tarouba Sporting Complex’. What that means Trinidad and Tobago is close to a billion dollars of our tax payers dollars has been spent in a time of severe economic slowdown and we have absolutely nothing to show for it not even a stadium!

When pressed by Opposition MP Hamza Rafeeq for the cost of the entire project Hunt responded “It is not feasible to give a projected cost for the entire sporting complex and all lanned infrastructure, as the under briefs for all sporting infrastructure are not yet complete." When pressed about the expected date of completion Hunt responded "It is not feasible to give the completion date of the entire sporting complex." When pressed about the annual cost of maintenance of the complex after completion Hunt responded "It is not feasible to give a projected maintenance cost of the entire sporting complex as the user brief for each component of the planned complex is not yet complete."

Am I seeing things? Am I being delusional while reading the Express? Is this a nightmare? What exactly does this government think they are running a parlour? So what the hell exactly is 'feasible' to Gary Hunt?! You mean to tell me these people spent close to a billion dollars without doing a cost analysis and feasibility study? No one in the Ministry of Finance saw it fit to do a budget for this project before any site preparation was conducted? By Hunt’s response I suppose it is a high probability that this project could cost us 80 trillion dollars and more because clearly there is no budget limit or exit strategy if the project happens to be not so feasible! And I guess that the stadium can be completed somewhere between the years 5080 and 5081 by that time my behind would have been buried and reincarnated multiple times and each time I die it is with an expression of great annoyance splashed across my face with a balsier dagger sticking out of my faint heart!

And is if to ensure that the citizens of this country are kept on the alert, heart racing as if we are watching a terrifying horror movie all alone in the wee hours of the night, a mere day after Hunt’s flabbergasting revelations of the infeasibility of him not being able to feasibly account for projects under his not so feasibly managed Ministerial portfolio, we are now hearing news of the potential collapse of the Uff Commission after 3 million has been expended on this not so feasible fiasco and which does not include the cost of Government’s legal counsel! Why? Because the Commission was never ‘gazetted’?! What crockery is that?

Every day I open the blasted ‘gazette’ and reading about so and so said this at the Uff Commission and so and so was interviewed at the Uff Commission, heck as far as I’m concerned that is enough gazetting, let the damn Commission continue! I want to know about the evidence Carl Khan has and what Calder Hart’s wife has to say about Khan’s allegations of her family ties to directors of overnight company CH Development which UDECOTT awarded the contract to build the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower!

This government is demonstrating a most wasteful and obscene form of governance ever witnessed in this country. This is what Patrick sacrificed Dr. Rowley for? This is what the purging and political exorcism of the great PNM was about? To facilitate financial mumbo jumbo and national espionage! Perhaps Patrick should include a team of financial advisers to his team of ‘political educators’. First it is a Minister of Finance who does not know how a fixed deposit is operated, now we have a Sport Minister who can’t give any feasible responses to the projects falling under his portfolio and a 3 million dollar ungazetted Commission of Enquiry! I would seriously like to know the feasibility of having an unfeasible government mismanage an economy to the point that one day we may end up just like Guyana, a land with a history of wealth transformed to a land of despair all because of one man’s unfeasible blindness and stifling egotism! ©

Mr. Maharaj You Are Wrong

Secretary general of the Maha Sabha, Satnarayan Maharaj, has out rightly confused me by his support for President George Maxwell Richards and his condemnation of the Law Association's call for the President's resignation. Mr. Maharaj's position is one of utter contradiction because on the one hand he does not support calls for the President's resignation asking rhetorically of the Law Association to show him a person in public life who has not made a 'mistake'. He then goes on to say that the Law Association should instead spend it's time criticizing the wanton wastage of public funds and alleged procurement breaches by officials involved in these projects.

Mr. Maharaj's position is one of direct contradiction because the President's actions, or in my personal opinion 'negligence' is in fact tied directly to the wanton wastage and procurement breaches to which Mr. Maharaj claims to be concerned about. Quite frankly I'm not surprised by Mr. Maharaj's comments that all public officials make mistakes, which seems to endorse President Richard's remarks that to 'err is human'. Mr. Maharaj is after all a religious man, and his position seems to be that of 'who is without sin cast the first stone'. In my own secular opinion I would like to indicate to Mr. Maharaj that in the case of a public official, especially one who holds a high an office as the President, the word mistake cannot be used as a 'synonym' for 'negligence' and gross negligence at that. Not ignoring the fact that Mr. Maharaj is a Hindu, I just want to indicate to him that in the Bible Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus hanged himself when the full brunt of his actions registered on his conscience. We are not asking that the President hangs himself, however when one makes a mistake, especially a material mistake one is expected to take full blame for that mistake and then take whatever necessary action is required to redeem oneself. In the case of President Richards that would be to resign. One writer in the daily newspaper even made reference to the fact that ancient Romans use to commit suicide, however his view is that they were running away from their errors. From what I have read of the ancient Romans, my view is that Romans were people who valued their honour and their names, so much so that they preferred to be dead than to live with a sullied character.

The Presidents appointment of Father Charles to the Integrity Commission, knowing fully well that this is someone who willfully committed a breach of academic ethics was not a mistake. It was a willful act on the part of the President as Father Charles himself said that the President indicated to him that 'it was no big thing'. A former university principal now president saying that plagiarism is no big thing is not a 'mistake'. As a matter of fact, that act of the President calls into question his own integrity. If Mr. Maharaj sees this as no reason for Mr. Richards to resign then this would mean that plagiarism is also no big thing for Mr. Maharaj. I would then have to check myself when reading Mr. Maharaj's weekly columns in the newspaper, need I say more? Then there is the issue of the appointment of Mr. McFarlane whom the President introduced as holding positions on several state boards. The President was aware of Mr. MacFarlane's state board positions, and if it is as the President indicated it is his 'prerogative' to appoint members of the Integrity Commission then shouldn't the President familiarize himself with the contents of the legislation which grants him the authority to do such? This again cannot be described as a mistake, it was a dereliction of duty on the part of the President.

Mr. Maharaj confuses me most when he says that the Law Association should focus on the cost over runs and procurement breaches. Doesn't Mr. Maharaj realize that the Integrity Commission is in fact one of the Institutions that would be involved in any investigation concerning the misappropriation of funds in any of these large projects? And if the Integrity Commission is one of the Institutions that guards the public purse then shouldn't it's commissioners be men of standing, men of integrity? If Father Charles can claim he committed his acts of plagiarism because of time constraints, what would time constraints cause him to do in his capacity as an Integrity Commission Mr. Maharaj? And for someone who has fought against victimization by the current ruling government how can Mr. Maharaj say that the appointment of someone to the Integrity Commission, who sits on three state boards and who is a direct employee of the state is no reason for the President to resign because it's a mistake? Mr. McFarlane is Calder Hart's employee, can Mr. McFarlene then without prejudice adjudicate on any matter that comes before him concerning Mr. Calder Hart?

As someone who is the head of an organization that represents a significant section of our population, Mr. Maharaj needs to evaluate his positions very carefully, for like the President he may very well bring the organization which he represents into disrepute in the eyes of the civil minded citizens of this country. ©