Dare to be better

THE EDITOR: Sandals discontinued its initiative to open a hotel in Tobago. Some say it is the fault of the opposition and others. Their words caused a business entity to look beyond the potential to increase their profits.

Certainly, it had nothing to do with the fact that hotels in Tobago have to struggle with a reliable water supply, poor infrastructure at the air and sea ports and other poor infrastructure like waste management.

The public sector is under-performing. Some suggest it is the fault of the lazy public servant. It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that many public servants have been in acting positions for years, their remuneration hardly allowing them to pay their bills. They are subject to daily commute that takes hours away from their day and many are unable to spend quality time with their families.

The economy is struggling, crime is commonplace, and some would have you believe it is the fault of people opposed to the Government. A minister of government is arrested and charged with misconduct. It is reported that some are blaming it on a previous administration.

The country is trapped in a racial voting pattern. The blame is on one or the other major political party. Depending on which side of the fence one sits, it is always the other party’s or person’s fault.

Finding faults and making excuses solves nothing. Every election campaign is littered with accusations of impropriety, incompetence, racial baiting and fault-finding.

TT has a plethora of intelligent people on both sides of the fence. If miraculously they can ever come together and share their ideas, we can transform our nation into a paradise in a very short time.

Imagine for a moment if our billions were spent on opening up our country with a new network of roads, a light rail system and a reliable inter-island ferry service.

Imagine if the contracts for these infrastructure improvements were entered through open real competitive tendering, ensuring that the best contractors get the project and endeavour to complete them on time and within budget. That would reduce our transportation time to minutes instead of hours.

Think of restructuring our economy where the initiative is to encourage private sector investment rather than continuing to invest in state companies that are a burden on the treasury.

Think what transformation is possible if the money spent on Cepep, URP and the many other wasteful social programmes were invested in subsidies and grants that support investment in agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, the arts, sports and the packaging Carnival to be safe and profitable.

Envisage our public servants relocated to service within their communities without losing their tenure of service as communities embrace a new governance model where the communities manage their water distribution, infrastructure and general development.

Visualise our police on regular structured patrols ensuring that in this small country there are no hot spots or areas where citizens fear to tread.

Think of a day when there is an announcement that all cases lingering in our courts over ten years are expedited through plea bargaining or dismissal after consideration by a group of legal minds tasked with ensuring justice is fair and fast.

All of that and more are possible if we stop the blame game and unite to rebuild our nation. Only then would we be able to have a comprehensive disaster management plan, competitive sports personnel, long-term employment for our children and care for the elderly.

This is possible in this 57th year of independence, if we dare to embrace the first word of our nation’s motto – “together.”

STEVE ALVAREZ

political leader, DPTT