Ms West, let us work from home

THE EDITOR: Sometime ago, I wrote on the absurd importance the Ministry of Public Administration placed on rolling out a dress code for public offices. Now if this is not government trite fiddling and twiddling, I don't know what is, since I found it well beneath the status of a chartered accountant now Minister (of Public Administration) to be providing guidance on attire or non-attire. It was just a waste to employ state resources/funds/public servants' time to put out ads, releases, policies and other such things.

I describe this farce as a misplaced priority when a monstrous problem almost as big as Godzilla confronts the nation, and I am not talking about crime but instead traffic congestion. Like criminals, it's killing what's left of the nation. It disrupts, if not discourages, business. It impacts the human body to be sitting in a traffic jam for three and more hours in the morning and the same in the evening, just to reach Arima or San Fernando, or from Barataria when there is an accident or an incident on any road to and from. The police are no help as they capitalise on road blocks by giving as many tickets as possible.

And of course, the banal, shallow empty-headed discussion about the number of cars on the road is once again roaring, with the immediate solution being an increase in gas prices, because no one has rioted yet. This failed, simply because, the public transport is unsafe (criminal PH drivers and dangerous predators as taxi drivers), unreliable (I mean PTSC is boo!) and just downright impractical to be travelling with as many as ten bags for a family of four who have school, extra-curricular activities and work-related matters to attend to. So the bus or a taxi is out. You have to get a car or two. You can't do homework in a taxi or complete a report squished in a sweaty taxi grinding into Port of Spain.

What is not being discussed is the long overdue work-from-home policy the minister said she was working on since Adam was a little boy. This can be supported by the concept of decentralisation. This was supposed to provide relief in the covid pandemic but the Government bamboozled the nation with an empty promise and eventually gave up. Minister West's efforts seem to have gone south, as we are no closer to any relief, but according to the Prime Minister, those lazy, "slothful" public servants are frustrating everything from A-Z when it comes to public-sector productivity, efficacy, service delivery and performance.

He points one finger at the public service and I point back the other four at him and his ministers. They are the slothful ones: there is not one he can say distinguishes himself or herself, and don't say roads, as that is at the bottom of the barrel – just look at roads in Ajax Street and Endeavour Estate as well as Biljah Road, where they found Ritchie Sookhay.

The Government says it has no data that the increased fuel price is not hurting the nation, but you only have to look out the window, when bustling by the common man in your police escort and when you get into office, there is no one there because they are all stuck in traffic or taking a nap in the toilet after having left home since 3 am and holding up a bowel movement through God's infinite mercy, since then.

Ms West, please use your head: work from home before it's too late.

LINDA CAPILDEO

St James