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! ©

National Awards Politically Motivated

While Devant Maharaj and dem odder boys who obsessed with race try to pollute the minds of the uneducated and ignorant in this country Panday, Manning and all their Indo, Afro, Chinee and Syrian big boy friends tiefing de money of the poor TRINIDADIAN!

There is something extremely sinister on the horizon when people start to talk about STATISTICAL MAJORITY in a multi-ethnic society! - Oke Zachary ©

"Last week, the Indo-Trinbago Equality Council, which is headed by Maha Sabha executive member Devant Maharaj, issued a statement claiming that with "Indians constituting a statistical majority of the national population of over 43 per cent as compared to the 38 per cent for their African counterpart, it is inconceivable how and why Indians only receive a mere 10 per cent or 25 per cent of the national awards handed out annually." (Maharaj's population figures are inaccurate: according to the 2000 census, persons of Indian descent make up 40 per cent of the populace, and persons of African descent 37.5 per cent.)

But, says Dumas, "I don't know that we should go on the basis of giving awards on the basis of racial quotas." As to whether there is racial bias in the awards, he suggests, "I would like to see what happened under the Panday regime." In fact, during the UNC's five-year tenure, only 29 per cent of the National Awards went to Indo-Trinidadians. As Table 1 shows, there was no systematic racial pattern in the awards given out between 1996 and 2000, when the UNC held office."

Read the full story at Trinidad Express

Planet of Wishers

As children we wish to grow older but as adults we wish to return to our childhood youth.

We wish for a good job and when we get that job we wish we could stay home and do nothing but relax.

We wish for cars but when we get them we wish we did not have the expense of having a car.

Some wish for fame but when they get it they then wish for privacy.

We wish for knowledge and understanding but when acquired we abhor its implications for our actions and wish for ignorance.

We wish for many friends and then wish for solitude.

Some wish for public office and then wish for unaccountability.

Some wish for truth but when truth is revealed they wish it was kept concealed.

We wish for wives and husbands but depending how the marriage goes we then wish for girlfriends and boyfriends.

We wish to acquire maturity then wish for the playfulness of children.

We wish for the energy to keep going then wish for a moment to just stand still.

We wish for progress and change then we wish for the way things were.

We wish for a life of order then wish for a life of spontaneity.

We wish for development and urbanism then we wish for nature and wild life.

We wish for control and then wish for the abscence of responsibility.


We are a planet of wishers wishing for things we do not necessarily need but wishing all the same because to live without a wish is to live without desire. What have you wished for lately? ©

Begging Politely

Nothing irks me more than an impolite beggar. Now don't get me wrong, if a homeless person decides to beg me for a little 'small' change I don't expect him/her to get down on their knees and prostrate themselves at my feet. I do however expect them to have the respect that goes with conversing with people who do not have a bond of familiarity with them and I also expect them to ‘beg’ in a less demanding manner without a disposition of entitlement.

For instance there is this particular guy who hangs outside the bank and begs me every single day. This is his approach to begging me on any given day :-

“Short man gimme ah dollar nah!’

“Soldier gimme ah dollar nah!”

“Aye...pappy gimme ah dollar nah!”

“Blackman gimme ah dollar nah!”

Now granted I am only 5 ft 10....who in their right firetrucking mind really believes this ‘Blackman’ will give them a dollar after being called short?! And it is not just what he says it is how he says it....in a very demanding voice that portrays a disposition of entitlement and familiarity as if we are pals.

There are those who do not respect bodily space and the boundaries that accompany such space. I am specifically referring to those that walk straight up into your face as if they are about to kiss you or they come so close to you to whisper in your ear “Boss you could just spare me a minute?” At this point I'm usually pondering whether I will be able to hold my breath long enough to get around them before their usual self produced ‘cologne’ assaults every single nerve cell in my nasal cavity.

My usual response to that kind is “Not today”. I mean, if you are going to beg for money then just get on about it and beg, don’t expect me to stop dead in my tracks empty my head of all thoughts and personal anxieties and ignore all priorities to stand up for 15 minutes to listen to the depressing chronicle of your sad pathetic life that is going to end in a climax of a request for a damn dollar! My 15 minutes is worth more than a firetrucking dollar!

One time a guy tried that one on me and I was like ‘Not Today’....well boy did I get a cussing of a life time! He was like “Not today? Not to f**king day? I ask you for something? Eh? I ask you for f**king something? You eh even know what the f**k I was going to ask you. Doh worry God will f**king do for you, I hope you does tell God not to day!” Well no need to tell you how unmoved I was and if he was trying to reach that part of my soul...the compartment with the label ‘empathy’ on it....he was clearly not hitting my emotional G-Spot!

Seriousness

Seriousness is a disease, the greatest disease of the soul, and playfulness the greatest health. - Osho