Stop telling us it's no big deal

Austin Fido

I’M EXCITED to start working with Adrian Leonce. As the outgoing MP for Laventille East/Morvant has stated, in 2023 he set up a company in the UK with a man about whom he knew nothing other than the gentleman was willing and able to help Leonce set up a company in the UK. By July 2024, the current Minister of Housing and Urban Development learned another thing about his business associate: the man was under criminal investigation. The company was shut down and Leonce has told the press that he doesn’t understand “why people think it’s such a big deal.”

I have two pieces of good news for Leonce. First, as someone who knows as little about him as he does about me, I am ideally qualified to replace his erstwhile business associate. We’re complete strangers to each other, so I’m looking forward to working with you, Adrian.

Second, I can end confusion over why the story is a big deal. You see, back in December, the TT government declared a state of emergency over concerns about brazen gang violence threatening public safety. This has caused some foreign governments to issue travel advisories, warning their citizens that TT might not be the most hospitable place to visit right now.

Further, just about two weeks ago, the UK abruptly made it a lot more difficult for TT citizens to visit London or Liverpool for holidays, shopping trips, or to set up businesses with people they don’t know.

The stated reason for the UK’s action (introducing visa requirements and a seemingly punitive fee structure for obtaining said visa) was a concern about a recent massive increase in asylum claims from TT. Britain interprets that increase as bad-faith actors from Trinidad trying to manipulate Britain’s immigration system.

Leonce is not personally or tangentially connected to either of those issues. All joking aside, there’s absolutely no hint of anything illegal on Leonce’s part. Indeed, the facts of the story speak to entirely sensible behaviour: Leonce set up a company with some guy, and then he dissolved that business as soon as he learned that guy had some legal issues to confront. Any right-thinking individual would do the same.

But you’re a government minister in a country under SoE. It’s come to light that you opened and closed a company in the UK inside a year, because of concerns about the (unrelated) activities of a director. And the UK is actively trying to restrict inbound traffic from TT because it claims Trinidadians are entering the UK with fraudulent intent.

Eyes are on TT and it’s not a great look, Adrian, when your affairs get added to the world’s list of “weird stuff happening in Trinidad.” It’s reasonable for questions to be asked.

TT is perceived as a country struggling to control runaway criminality, and here’s a prominent political figure struggling to keep his own affairs from being tainted by criminality. The matter deserves better than “I don’t understand why people think it’s such a big deal.”

Unfortunately, it may be all we get. That’s not Adrian Leonce’s fault. He is merely following the example set by almost every politician of the modern age. We live in an era of politics played almost entirely as theatre. Suspension of disbelief is essential to the experience. And accountability in politics has long been out of fashion.

Over in the US last week, the Trump clown show bested its staggeringly high standard for flabbergasting episodes of stupidity in government. Conducting a war briefing via group chat and inadvertently including a journalist in the discussion is so far beyond dumb my thesaurus is at a loss for words.

The administration could have acknowledged the episode illustrates exactly why the US government is not supposed to conduct its affairs by group chat. But it chose to flail around looking for every available argument to deflect or minimise the matter. “It’s really not a big deal,” Trump said last week in a floundering effort to get the media to move on.

Granted, the Trump administration’s “no big deal” is a much bigger deal than Adrian Leonce’s “no big deal.” But the principle is much the same. They could acknowledge the situation warrants interrogation in the public interest. Instead, they seek to question the questioners and challenge the legitimacy of any inquiry. This is gaslighting. An electorate trying to understand how a trusted representative got into a spot of bother deserves better.